Nepal Plane Crash: Nepal Army hands over black box to Civil Aviation Authority

The Nepal Army handed over the black box of the Yeti Airlines aircraft, which crashed on Sunday with 72 people, to Civil Aviation Authority officials on Monday. 

Following the crash, the Nepal Army also handed over the flight data recorder. Earlier on Sunday, minutes before touch-down, the twin-engine ATR 72 aircraft from Kathmandu crashed in Pokhara. In the crash, all the passengers lost their lives, and so far 68 bodies have been recovered. 

Assistant Chief District Officer of Kaski, Nepal, Anil Kumar Shahi said, “Bodies of passengers, whose identities have been established, have been sent for post-mortem. A group of experts also has arrived at the spot. The bodies will be handed over to the families here but those of the crew members, foreigners and the ones yet to be identified will be sent to Kathmandu this evening.” 

Meanwhile, on Monday morning, the search and rescue operations at the crash site resumed, and a black box was recovered. 

“Till last evening (Sunday), we had collected 63 bodies and shifted them to a hospital, while 3 were spotted but could not be retrieved. Today (Monday), we recovered 6 more bodies. Three more are missing, and a search is underway to retrieve these bodies at the earliest,” Shahi said.

Furthermore, 68 passengers, including five Indians, and four crew members died on Sunday.

The airlines expressed their grief and tweeted, “In mourning for the passengers who lost their lives in the accident of Yeti Airlines 9N ANC ATR 72 500, we would like to inform you that all regular flights for January 16, 2023, have been canceled.” 

However, to mourn the loss of lives in the air crash, Nepal’s Yeti Airlines canceled regular flights on Monday.