Nepal’s hospitals return bodies from air crash to grieving families
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Nepal's army and volunteers carry the body of a victim who died in a plane crash in Pokhara, Nepal, on Jan 17, 2023.
PHOTO: AFP
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POKHARA - Nepali hospital staff began the grim task of handing over bodies to grieving families on Tuesday after a plane with 72 people on board crashed
The Yeti Airlines flight with 68 passengers and four crew plummeted into a steep gorge, smashed into pieces and burst into flames as it approached the central city of Pokhara on Sunday.
All those on board, including six children and 15 foreigners, are believed to have died.
Rescuers have been working almost around the clock recovering human remains from the 300m-deep gorge strewn with twisted plane seats and chunks of fuselage and wing.
Seventy bodies had been retrieved by early Tuesday, police official AK Chhetri said.
“We retrieved one body last night. But it was three pieces. We are not sure whether it’s three bodies or one body. It will be confirmed only after DNA test,” the official said.
He said the search for the other two missing bodies has resumed.
Difficult terrain and inclement weather hampered rescue efforts. Drones were being used and the search had been expanded to a radius of 2km to 3km, he said.
The search efforts are expected to continue until all 72 passengers and crew are accounted for.
The black boxes from the plane, made by France-based ATR, were handed over to the authorities on Monday, said Mr Bikram Raj Gautam, chief of Pokhara International Airport.
Up to 10 bodies were moved by army truck from Pokhara hospital to the airport ready to be airlifted back to the capital, Kathmandu. Another three bodies were handed over to grieving families in Pokhara, with others due to follow.
“Eight bodies have been handed to families. We will hand over another 14 bodies after completing autopsies here in Pokhara. Forty-eight bodies have been sent to Kathmandu for DNA tests and handover to the families,” Mr Chhetri said.
Dr Tulsi Kandel, at the teaching hospital in Kathmandu, said it could take up to a week to complete autopsies on all 48 bodies – half of them charred.
The ATR 72 was flying from Kathmandu to Pokhara, a gateway for religious pilgrims and trekkers, when it crashed shortly before 11am local time. The cause is not yet known but a video on social media showed the twin-propeller aircraft banking suddenly and sharply to the left as it neared Pokhara airport. A loud explosion followed.
“I was walking when I heard a loud blast, like a bomb went off,” said witness Arun Tamu, 44, who was around 500m away and live-streamed video of the blazing wreckage on social media.
Experts said it was unclear from the clip whether human error or a mechanical fault was to blame.
On Monday, searchers found the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from the flight, both in good condition, a discovery that is likely to help investigators determine what caused the crash.
Rescuers inspect the wreckage at the site of a Yeti Airlines plane crash in Pokhara, on Jan 16, 2023.
PHOTO: AFP
Under international aviation rules, the crash investigation agencies of the countries where the plane and engines were designed and built are automatically part of the inquiry.
ATR is based in France and the plane’s engines were made in Canada by Pratt & Whitney Canada.
French and Canadian air accident investigators have said they plan to take part in the probe.
Mr Raj Dhungana, the uncle of one of the passengers, 23-year-old Sangita Shahi, said outside a hospital in Pokhara that his whole family “is in pain”.
He described a “very talented” young woman who was a student in Kathmandu and ran a makeup studio while working on an online business platform on the side.
“God has taken away such a nice person,” he said.
According to the Press Trust of India news agency, the pilot Anju Khatiwada joined Nepal’s aviation sector after her husband was killed flying a small passenger plane in 2006.
Nepal’s aviation industry has boomed in recent years, carrying goods and people between hard-to-reach areas, as well as ferrying foreign mountain climbers. The sector has been plagued by poor safety due to insufficient training and maintenance.
Family members of the Yeti Airlines ATR72 aircraft victims react outside the hospital mortuary in Pokhara, on Jan 16, 2023.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
The European Union has banned all Nepali carriers from its airspace over safety concerns.
Nepal also has some of the world’s trickiest and most remote runways, flanked by snow-capped peaks with difficult approaches and capricious weather.
Its deadliest aviation accident occurred in 1992, when all 167 people on a Pakistan International Airlines jet were killed when it crashed on approach to Kathmandu. AFP, REUTERS
