At least 68 people were killed on Sunday when a domestic flight crashed near an airport in central Nepal and then caught fire, said media reports citing officials. 

 

The Yeti Airlines flight from Kathmandu to the tourist town of Pokhara crash landed and then caught fire in what is being termed as the country’s deadliest plane crash in more than 30 years.

 

It is Nepal's deadliest since 1992, the Aviation Safety Network database showed, when a Pakistan International Airlines Airbus A300 crashed into a hillside upon approach to Kathmandu, killing all 167 people on board.

 

The plane lost contact with Pokhara airport at about 10.50 am local time, about 18 minutes after takeoff. It then went down in the nearby Seti River Gorge, reported CNN. 

 

First responders from the Nepal Army and various police departments have been deployed to the crash site and are carrying out a rescue operation, stated the report citing the civil aviation authorities.

 

"Seventy-two people – four crew members and 68 passengers – were on board the ATR-72 plane operated by Nepal’s Yeti Airlines when it crashed," Yeti Airlines spokesman Sudarshan Bartaula said. Thirty-seven were men, 25 were women, three were children and three were infants, Nepal’s civil aviation authority reported.

 

Of the passengers, 53 are said to be Nepalese. There were five Indian, four Russians and two Koreans on the plane.

 

Local resident Deeveta Kal told the BBC how she rushed to the crash site after seeing the aircraft plunge from the sky shortly after 11:00am local time (05:15 GMT).

 

"By the time I was there the crash site was already crowded. There was huge smoke coming from the flames of the plane. And then helicopters came over in no time," she said.

 

"The pilot tried his best to not hit civilisation or any home," Deevta Kal added. "There was a small space right beside the Seti River and the flight hit the ground in that small space."

 

Videos posted on social media show an aircraft flying low over a populated area before spinning sharply.

 

Hundreds of rescue workers were scouring the hillside where the Yeti Airlines flight, carrying 72 people from the capital Kathmandu, went down, reported Reuters.

 

Local TV showed rescue workers scrambling around broken sections of the aircraft. Some of the ground near the crash site was scorched, with licks of flames visible.

 

The plane made contact with the airport from Seti Gorge at 10:50 a.m. (0505 GMT), the aviation authority said in its statement. "Then it crashed."

 

Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal called an emergency meeting of his cabinet and urged state agencies to work on rescue operations.

 

Local TV showed rescue workers scrambling around broken sections of the aircraft. Some of the ground near the crash site was scorched, with licks of flames visible.