ANKARA: Rescuers on Monday resumed searching for four people still missing after a plane carrying 68 passengers and four crew members crashed in Nepal.
At least 68 people were killed on Sunday when a flight crashed near the city of Pokhara in central Nepal, the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) said, in what is being termed as the country’s deadliest accident in more than 30 years.
The passengers included 53 Nepalese, five Indians, four Russians, two Koreans, one Irish, one Australian, one Argentinian, and one French, according to the CAAN. Six of the 68 passengers were minors, with 37 males and 25 females.
Krishna Bhandari, a Nepal army spokesman, told Anadolu that the search operation resumed early Monday.
“There are four individuals who are still missing,” he said, adding that due to the darkness, the search operation was halted on Sunday night.
Bhandari said the rescue teams have not found any survivors yet at the crash site.
“There are many reasons for plane crashes, it takes time to understand the actual reason. But as far as we can see, the plane fell due to imbalance,” airport officials told Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda, who arrived at the Tribhuvan International Airport after the incident, according to local media.
During the briefing, it was said the pilot took the plane to the gorge to protect the settlement. “The plane did not crash in the settlement, it went down in the gorge,” the officials said in the briefing.
“The exact reason will be revealed after the investigation.”
Earlier, the government formed a five-member committee to investigate the plane crash and submit a report within 45 days, according to government spokesperson and Finance Minister Bishnu Prasad Paudel.
He said the government has ordered a technical check of all domestic planes, and the government would implement the report of the investigation panel to prevent future accidents.
Last year, 22 people were killed when a private plane operated by Nepal’s Tara Air crashed shortly after taking off from Pokhara.
