Nepal Plane Crash: Two black box recovered; 4 people still missing, search ops underway

The search and rescue teams have found two black box of an ATR 72 aircraft of Yeti Airlines that crashed in Pokhara on January 15 killing at least 68 people.

Prem Nath Thakur, spokesperson of Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport, confirmed that the black box has been recovered. Thakur is also a member of the rescue coordination committee.

According to Jagannath Niraula, spokesperson of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal, the black box has been handed over to Nepal Army and will be submitted to a probe team in Kathmandu later today.

The black box, also referred to as a Flight Data Recorder, is a device that documents all of the activities of an aircraft. The black box provides vital data that help investigators figure out what happened during the flight.

The Cabinet meeting on January 15 had formed a five-member probe committee under Nagendra Ghimire, former secretary at the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, to investigate the accident.

Meanwhile, the identification of 35 bodies out of 68 retrieved from a Yeti Airlines aircraft crash site in Pokhara of Kaski district in western Nepal has been ascertained as of Monday morning.

According to police, a search for four people missing in the crash is still underway.

Rescuers are having a tough time due to the difficult terrain. They resumed their rescue and search attempts at the crash site located on Seti River Gorge on January 16. The rescue efforts were put off on January 15.