Passenger broadcast live from plane in Nepal moments before crash

by

The moments leading up to the air crash in Nepal this Sunday (15) were recorded in a Facebook live by a group of Indian friends.

In the recording, the four are playing and making jokes when the plane goes into free fall. The other passengers also seem calm, and there is no sign of alarm on the part of the pilot or the flight attendants. Suddenly, however, there is a loud noise of an explosion, and the screen is filled with flames of fire.

The video indicates that the flight’s 72 crew had no idea that the plane was at risk during landing – the sky in the region was clear at the time of the crash.

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING VIDEO CONTAINS STRONG IMAGES

According to the country’s authorities, the crew’s last contact with the local airport was at 10:50 am (2:00 am in Brasília). Among the passengers on the ATR 72 twin-engine aircraft were three children and three babies. The plane was still carrying four Russians, an Irishman, two South Koreans, an Australian, a Frenchman and an Argentinean — and five Indians, four of them the friends who appear in the video.

The trip to Pokhara, the second largest city in Nepal, from Kathmandu is one of the most popular tourist routes in the country.

Sunday’s crash is the deadliest in the tiny Himalayan country since 1992. A Pakistan International Airlines Airbus A300 crashed into a hillside on approach to Kathmandu, killing all 167 people on board.

The ATR 72, from the European aircraft manufacturer ATR, is a twin-engine turboprop aircraft. According to flight tracking website FlightRadar24, the aircraft was 15 years old and equipped with an old transponder. After the accident, Yeti Airlines canceled all its flights on Monday (16).

The Nepalese government has set up a commission to investigate the causes of the accident and is expected to submit a report within 45 days, Finance Minister Bishnu Paudel said.

At least 309 people have died since 2000 in plane or helicopter crashes in Nepal. The country is home to eight of the 14 highest mountains in the world, including Everest, and the region’s climate can change suddenly and create dangerous conditions for flying.

Due to lack of staff training and lack of maintenance, airlines in Nepal often suffer from security issues. Airlines in the country, for example, have been banned from flying over European Union airspace since 2013.

The Himalayan country also has some of the most remote and challenging slopes in the world, flanked by snow-capped peaks that make the approach challenging even for experienced pilots.

The companies indicate that Nepal does not have the infrastructure to publish accurate weather forecasts, especially in the most remote and difficult mountain regions, where fatal accidents have been recorded in recent years.

You May Also Like

Recommended for you