Black box Of Nepal Plane That Crashed With 72 On Board Found: Report

Nepalese authorities have recovered the black box from Yeti Airlines aircraft that crashed yesterday with 72 people on board, news agency ANI reported quoting officials. The twin-engine ATR 72 aircraft from Kathmandu crashed in the tourist city of Pokhara minutes before landing on Sunday in clear weather. Sixty-eight passengers on board the aircraft have been confirmed dead.

“The black box of the crashed plane has been found”, news agency ANI reported quoting Kathmandu airport official Sher Bahadur Thakur.

A black box is a flight data recorder that records all flight information through a special algorithm.

The Kathmandu-Pokhara flight had 68 passengers, including five Indians, as well as four crew members.

There is no information about any survivor so far, said Sudarshan Bartaula, spokesperson at Yeti Airlines.

“The families have been contacted. Our Sub Divisional Magistrate and other officials are meeting them,” the official said.

The plane plunged into the gorge between Pokhara’s brand-new international airport and the old domestic one shortly before 11 am (0515 GMT) on Sunday.

Apart from the five Indians, there were 10 foreigners on board – four Russians, two South Koreans, and one passenger each from Argentina, Australia, France and Ireland.

The rest were Nepalis.

Home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains, including Everest, Nepal has some of the world’s most remote and trickiest runways with approaches that pose a challenge for even accomplished pilots.

The weather is also notoriously capricious and hard to forecast, particularly in the mountains, where thick fog can suddenly obscure whole mountains from view.

Nepal’s deadliest aviation accident was in 1992, when all 167 people on a Pakistan International Airlines jet died when it crashed on approach to Kathmandu.