On January 15th, a passenger plane operated by Yeti Airlines crashed in the city of Pokhara, Nepal. The plane, a twin-engine propeller aircraft, was carrying 68 passengers and 4 crew members. Sadly, none of the passengers are believed to have survived the crash, making it Nepal’s worst air disaster in nearly 30 years.
A video recorded by passenger Sonu Jaiswal, who was from India, has gone viral on social media. The footage, which was taken on a livestream on Facebook, shows the plane gliding over the buildings and fields surrounding the airport before the crash. Jaiswal was on board with three friends, who had gone to a grand shrine in Kathmandu and were on their way to Pokhara to paraglide.
Another video taken from the ground shows the plane approaching the airport before taking a hard swerve to the left. The cause of the crash is currently under investigation. The Nepali government has announced that rescuers have found the plane’s cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder, which may help determine the cause of the crash.
The BBC reported that Jaiswal’s friends and kin had confirmed the authenticity of the video. Abhishek Pratap Shah, a former lawmaker in Nepal, said that Jaiswal’s phone was recovered from the wreckage. The death toll currently stands at 70, with two more bodies being recovered on Monday. One of the pilots, Anju Khatiwada, was married to another pilot who died in a plane crash in 2006.
