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Officials say a plane carrying 72 people has crashed in Nepal, killing at least 68 people.
Videos broadcast by local media showed thick black smoke billowing from the crash site as rescue workers and crowds gathered around the wreckage.
Footage on social media showed the plane flying at a low altitude before starting to spin.
0:18 The plane flips moments before it crashes
Rescuers recovered 68 bodies of the 72 people on board.
“We expect to recover more bodies,” army spokesman Krishna Bhandari said. “The plane crashed.”
A company spokesman said the plane was carrying 68 passengers, including three children and four crew members.
The passengers included five Indians, four Russians and two South Koreans, while there was one passenger each from Ireland, Australia, France and Argentina.
Half of the plane is on the hill and the other half is in the gorge
A police official said rescue workers were having difficulty reaching the crash site, as it is located in a valley between two hills.
Aaron Tamu, a local resident, said that half of the plane was on the hillside. “The other half fell into the City River Lane.”
0:34 An official said the plane was blown to pieces when it hit the ground
Khum Bahadur Chhetri said he “saw the plane shuddering and moving left and right, and suddenly its nose fell off and it entered the strait.”
He said residents took two passengers to the hospital.
The city of Pokhara, 125 miles (200 kilometers) west of the capital, Kathmandu, is the gateway to the Annapurna Circuit, a popular hiking trail in the Himalayas. Its airport only started operating two weeks ago.
Emergency cabinet meeting
Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal called an emergency cabinet meeting and urged security personnel and local residents to assist in the rescue effort.
An airport official said the twin-engine ATR 72 operated by Yeti Airlines was on its way from Kathmandu.
Yeti Airlines has announced that it will cancel all scheduled flights tomorrow to “mourn the passengers who lost their lives.”
The plane was 15 years old and was equipped with an old transponder with unreliable data, according to flight-tracking website FlightRadar24.
The Aviation Safety Network database showed that this was the deadliest plane crash in Nepal since 1992.
Photo: Pics: AP
History of plane crashes
Plane crashes are not uncommon in Nepal, which is home to eight of the 14 highest mountains in the world, including Mount Everest, where the weather can change suddenly and lead to dangerous conditions.
The European Union has banned Nepali airlines from its airspace since 2013 due to safety concerns.
Twenty-two people were killed last year when a plane crashed into a mountainside.
In 2018, an American Bengali passenger plane from Bangladesh crashed upon landing in Kathmandu, killing 49 of the 71 people on board.
In 1992, all 167 people on board a Pakistan International Airlines flight were killed when it crashed into a hill while trying to land in Kathmandu.
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