Plane with 72 people on board crashes in Nepal

An aircraft with 72 people on board crashed between the old and new Pokhara airports in central Nepal on Sunday, according to media reports.

“There are 68 passengers on board and four crew members… Rescue is underway, we don’t know right now if there are survivors,” a spokesman for Yeti Airlines, Sudarshan Bartaula, told AFP news agency.

State television reported some bodies had been recovered from the crash site in the west of the small Himalayan country.

The wreckage was on fire and rescue workers were trying to put out the blaze, said local official Gurudutta Dhakal.

“Responders have already reached there and trying to douse the fire. All agencies are now focused on first dousing the fire and rescuing the passengers,” Dhakal said.

Pokhara is a bustling tourist town about 200km (124 miles) west of capital Kathmandu.

In May, a plane owned by Tara Air crashed less than 20 minutes after taking off from Pokhara, headed to Jomsom – a popular trekking and pilgrimage destination in Mustang district bordering Tibet.