New York Times (May 14, 2012)
15 Die in Nepal Plane Crash
By KIRATS
KATMANDU, Nepal — An Agni Air plane carrying Indian and Danish tourists
crashed into a hill near a mountain airport in Nepal on Monday, killing
15 people, including the two pilots.
Enlarge This Image
Nepal/Reuters
Anoreas Rasch, center, of Denmark, was pulled from the Dornier aircraft
that crashed at Pokhara airport on Monday.
Six people, including the flight attendant and two children, survived,
said Yogendra Kunwar, an air traffic controller at the Pokhara Airport
in western Nepal where the plane was diverted after aborting a landing
at the airport in Jomson, a hub for religious pilgrims and trekkers.
"The survivors are out of danger," Mr. Kunwar said after they were
airlifted to Pokhara, about 125 miles from Katmandu.
Just before the crash, the captain, Prabhu Sharan Pathak, had told the
Pokhara airport that the two-engine Dornier plane was experiencing
technical problems and he did not want to land as scheduled at Jomson
because it lacked adequate facilities for an emergency landing.
"The pilots were then asked to return to the Pokhara airport where the
facilities were better for an emergency landing," said Mr. Kunwar.
It was the second Agni Air crash in two years. In August 2010, one of
its planes crashed in the Everest region, killing 14 people, including
four Americans.
The Jomson airport, at an elevation of 8,800 feet with a short runway,
is considered on the world’s most dangerous.
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