Nepal plane crash: Hope of finding survivors ‘nil’, black box retrieved [see updates]

Remains of at least 68 people onboard a 72-seater passengers aircraft that crashed in Nepal have so far been retrieved, while the hopes of finding survivors are nil, reported news agency AFP, quoting officials. 

“We have collected 68 bodies so far. We are searching for four more bodies… We pray for a miracle. But, the hope of finding anyone alive is nil,” Tek Bahadur KC, the chief district officer in Taksi, was quoted as saying. 

Further, officials have stated that only 35 bodies have been identified. Police Inspector Gyan Bahadur Khadka said that the bodies will be handed over to the family members following the post-mortem.

In addition, the rescuers on Monday morning recovered the black box and cockpit voice recorder from the Yeti Airlines plane. According to officials, the boxes were “in a good condition now. They look good from the outside.”

It was handed over to the Nepali Army. It will be brought to Kathmandu and submitted to the Incident Investigation Commission which was formed by the government on Sunday.

The black box is considered crucial in determining the cause of the crash. It contains ‘Flight Radar Record’ and ‘Cockpit View Record’.

All you need to know:

The ill-fated ATR-72 plane from Yeti Airlines took off from Kathmandu for Pokhara at 10.30 on Sunday morning and lost contact with the air traffic control at 10.50 am.

Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority has said that there were 68 passengers and four crew members aboard the flight, among them 15 foreigners, including five Indians, four Russians, two Koreans and one each from Australia, Ireland, Argentina and France.

Four Indian passengers from Uttar Pradesh’s Ghazipur were live on Facebook to share their experience on the flight, minutes before the aircraft went down.

In the 1.3-minute live video on Facebook, one of them can be seen excitedly shouting “Mauj Kar Di” (it’s been fun) as the camera focuses on Pokhara town below.

The phone camera also pans on one of them, Sonu Jaiswal (29). After 58 seconds, however, the video shows the aircraft taking a sharp turn towards the left and then crashing and turning into flames. As the phone camera continued to roll, it caught glimpses of towering flames around it for the next 30 seconds.

Meanwhile, Yeti Airlines on Monday canceled its regular flights to mourn the passengers who lost their lives in the plane crash. A panel has also been set up to investigate the accident by Nepal’s government.