Rescuers scour the crash web site and wreckage of a passenger aircraft in Pokhara, Nepal, Monday, Jan.16, 2023. Nepal started a nationwide day of mourning Monday a day after the aircraft crashed whereas trying to land.

Yunish Gurung/AP

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Yunish Gurung/AP

Rescuers scour the crash web site and wreckage of a passenger aircraft in Pokhara, Nepal, Monday, Jan.16, 2023. Nepal started a nationwide day of mourning Monday a day after the aircraft crashed whereas trying to land.

Yunish Gurung/AP

POKHARA, Nepal (AP) — A spokesman for Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority says a flight information recorder and a cockpit voice recorder have been retrieved from the positioning of the crash of a passenger aircraft that went down on method to a newly opened airport within the vacationer city of Pokhara.

Jagannath Niraula mentioned the packing containers had been discovered on Monday, a day after the ATR-72 plane crashed, killing 68 of the 72 folks aboard. He mentioned they are going to be handed over to investigators.

Pemba Sherpa, spokesperson for Yeti Airlines, additionally confirmed that each the flight information and the cockpit voice recorders have been discovered.

Nepal started a nationwide day of mourning Monday, as rescue employees rappelled down a 300-meter (984 ft) gorge to proceed the search. Two extra our bodies had been discovered Monday morning.

It stays unclear what brought about the crash, the Himalayan nation’s deadliest airplane accident in three many years. The climate was delicate and never windy on the day of the crash.

A witness who recorded footage of the aircraft’s descent from his balcony mentioned he noticed the aircraft flying low earlier than it all of the sudden veered to its left. “I saw that and I was shocked… I thought that today everything will be finished here after it crashes, I will also be dead,” mentioned Diwas Bohora. After it crashed, crimson flames erupted and the bottom shook violently, like an earthquake, Bohora mentioned. “I was scared. Seeing that scene, I was scared.”

Another witness mentioned he noticed the plane twist violently within the air after it started descending to land, watching from the terrace of his home. Finally, Gaurav Gurung mentioned, the aircraft fell nose-first in direction of its left and crashed into the gorge.

Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority mentioned the plane final made contact with the airport from close to Seti Gorge at 10:50 a.m. earlier than crashing.

The twin-engine ATR 72 plane, operated by Nepal’s Yeti Airlines, was competing the 27-minute flight from the capital, Kathmandu, to Pokhara, 200 kilometers (125 miles) west. It was carrying 68 passengers, together with 15 international nationals, in addition to 4 crew members, Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority mentioned in a press release. The foreigners included 5 Indians, 4 Russians, two South Koreans, and one every from Ireland, Australia, Argentina and France.

Hundreds of individuals gathered outdoors the Pokhara Academy of Health and Science, Western Hospital, the place the our bodies are being saved. Relatives and mates of victims, lots of whom had been from Pokhara, consoled one another as they waited.

Bimala Bhenderi was ready outdoors the autopsy room Monday. She was planning to fulfill her good friend, Tribhuban Paudel, on Tuesday when she heard that his flight had crashed. “I’m so sad, I can’t believe it still,” she mentioned in tears.

Gyan Khadka, a police spokesperson within the district, mentioned 31 our bodies have been recognized and shall be handed over to household after officers end submit mortem stories. The our bodies of foreigners and people which are unrecognizable shall be despatched to Kathmandu for additional investigation.

On Sunday, Twitter was awash with photos that confirmed plumes of smoke billowing from the crash web site, about 1.6 kilometers (practically a mile) away from Pokhara International Airport. The plane’s fuselage was cut up into a number of components that had been scattered down the gorge.

Hours after darkish, scores of onlookers remained crowded across the crash web site close to the airport within the resort city of Pokhara as rescue employees combed the wreckage on the sting of the cliff and within the ravine beneath.

Local resident Bishnu Tiwari, who rushed to the crash web site close to the Seti River to assist seek for our bodies, mentioned the rescue efforts had been hampered by thick smoke and a raging hearth.

“The flames were so hot that we couldn’t go near the wreckage. I heard a man crying for help, but because of the flames and smoke we couldn’t help him,” Tiwari mentioned.

At Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu, relations appeared distraught as they waited for info.

Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal rushed to the airport after the crash and arrange a panel to research the accident.

“The incident was tragic. The full force of the Nepali army, police has been deployed for rescue,” he mentioned.

South Korea’s Foreign Ministry mentioned in a press release that it is nonetheless making an attempt to substantiate the destiny of two South Korean passengers and has despatched workers to the scene. The Russian Ambassador to Nepal, Alexei Novikov, confirmed the loss of life of 4 Russian residents who had been on board the aircraft.

Omar Gutiérrez, governor of Argentina’s Neuquen province, wrote on his official Twitter account that an Argentine passenger on the flight was Jannet Palavecino, from his province.

The Facebook web page of Palavecino says she was supervisor of the Hotel Suizo in Neuquen metropolis. She described herself as a lover of journey and journey tourism.

Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers informed reporters Monday that “our hearts go out to all of the families of the crew and passengers” who died, including that the federal government was offering consular assist to the household of an Australian who was aboard the aircraft.

Pokhara is the gateway to the Annapurna Circuit, a well-liked mountain climbing path within the Himalayas. The metropolis’s new worldwide airport started operations solely two weeks in the past.

The sort of aircraft concerned, the ATR 72, has been utilized by airways all over the world for brief regional flights. Introduced within the late Nineteen Eighties by a French and Italian partnership, the plane mannequin has been concerned in a number of lethal accidents over time.

In Taiwan two earlier accidents involving ATR 72-500 and ATR 72-600 aircrafts occurred simply months aside.

In July 2014, a TransAsia ATR 72-500 flight crashed whereas making an attempt to land on the scenic Penghu archipelago between Taiwan and China, killing 48 folks onboard. An ATR 72-600 operated by the identical Taiwanese airline crashed shortly after takeoff in Taipei in February 2015 after one in every of its engines failed and the second was shut down, apparently by mistake.

The 2015 crash, captured in dramatic footage that confirmed the aircraft putting a taxi because it hurtled uncontrolled, killed 43, and prompted authorities to floor all Taiwanese-registered ATR 72s for a while. TransAsia ceased all flights in 2016 and later went out of enterprise.

ATR recognized the aircraft concerned in Sunday’s crash as an ATR 72-500 in a tweet. According to aircraft monitoring information from flightradar24.com, the plane was 15 years previous and “equipped with an old transponder with unreliable data.” It was beforehand flown by India’s Kingfisher Airlines and Thailand’s Nok Air earlier than Yeti took it over in 2019, in accordance with information on Airfleets.internet.

Yeti Airlines has a fleet of six ATR 72-500 planes, firm spokesperson Sudarshan Bartaula mentioned.

Nepal, house to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains, together with Mount Everest, has a historical past of air crashes. Sunday’s crash is Nepal’s deadliest since 1992, when all 167 folks aboard a Pakistan International Airlines aircraft had been killed when it plowed right into a hill because it tried to land in Kathmandu.

According to the Flight Safety Foundation’s Aviation Safety database, there have been 42 deadly aircraft crashes in Nepal since 1946.

According to a 2019 security report from Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority, the nation’s “hostile topography” and “diverse weather patterns” had been the largest risks to flights within the nation. The report mentioned such accidents occurred at airports that had quick strips of runway for takeoff and touchdown and most had been as a consequence of pilot error.

The report added that 37% of all air crashes in Nepal between 2009 and 2018 had been as a consequence of pilot error, not counting helicopters and leisure flights.

The European Union has banned airways from Nepal from flying into the 27-nation bloc since 2013, citing weak security requirements. In 2017, the International Civil Aviation Organization cited enhancements in Nepal’s aviation sector, however the EU continues to demand administrative reforms.