A flight data recorder and a cockpit voice recorder have been retrieved from the crash site of the passenger plane that went down on approach to the Pokhara airport on January 15.
In Nepal’s deadliest aviation accident in over three decades, a domestic flight with 72 people, including five Indians, crashed into a gorge on Sunday while attempting to land at the newly opened international airport in the city of Pokhara, killing at least 71 on board.
Passengers included 25 women, three children and as many infants. It remains unclear what caused the crash in non-windy weather, but the black box of the crashed aircraft was recovered on Monday.
A twin-engine ATR 72-500 aircraft of Nepal’s Yeti Airlines, with registration number 9N-ANC, took off from the Tribhuvan International Airport in the capital Kathmandu for Pokhara at around 10:30 a.m., with 68 passengers and four crew members on board.
Moments before its scheduled landing, the aircraft crashed between the old airport and the new airport on the bank of the Seti River around 11 a.m. — about 1.6 kilometres from the Pokhara airport.