A plane carrying tourists to view Mount Everest crashed while attempting to land in Nepal on Sunday, killing all 19 people on board, officials said.
The turboprop plane belonging to Buddha Air was carrying 13 foreign tourists, three Nepalese passengers and three crew members when it crashed in Bisankunarayan village, just a few miles (kilometers) south of the capital, Katmandu.
Rewant Kuwar, an official at Katmandu’s international airport rescue office, said that 18 bodies were pulled out of the plane’s wreckage, and that another victim died later after being rushed to a hospital.
Among the foreigners who died in the crash, 10 were Indian nationals, two were US citizens and the other was Japanese, Tourism Secretary Ganeshraj Joshi said.
An eyewitness, Haribol Poudel, told Avenues Television that the plane had hit the roof of a house in the village and disintegrated into several pieces. No casualties were reported on the ground.
Poudel said it was foggy, and that visibility was very low in the mountainous area.
The Beechcraft 1900D plane — manufactured by Raytheon Aircraft, now known as Hawker Beechcraft — had taken the passengers to view Mount Everest and other high peaks and was returning to Katmandu. The one-hour “mountain flight” takes tourists over the Everest region, and passengers can view some of the world’s highest peaks from the airplane windows.
-With bbc.co.uk input
