All 14 die in Nepal plane crash (Fifth Lead)

KATHMANDU - The festival of Raksha Bandhan, when sisters pray for the long life of their brothers, turned into stark tragedy in Nepal Tuesday as all 14 people on board a private aircraft, including seven foreign tourists, were killed in a crash near Kathmandu.

The 15-seater Dornier aircraft flown by domestic carrier Agni Air was heading towards the Everest region in northern Nepal with 11 passengers, including four American women, when it exploded mid-air with the wrecked parts scattering in Shikharpur, a village in Makwanpur district adjacent to Kathmandu valley.

Gyan Kumar Thakur, an eyewitness of the crash that occurred around 7.30 a.m., said there was a loud explosion before the aircraft plunged and the wreckage began burning. The bodies and belongings of the passengers were thrown out on a tract of land inundated by rain water.

“The site is difficult to reach due to last night’s incessant rain,” Thakur told private television station ABC.

“Villagers were guarding the broken bodies as rescue teams were held up by bad weather and fog. Passports and other papers were found scattered along with plane parts.”

The 11 passengers included seven foreigners, five of whom were women, and four Nepalis.

Agni Air told IANS the passengers have been preliminarily identified as a Japanese male, Y. Hayashi, a British male, identified only as Jeremy T. and five women.

Four of them were Americans: L. Cardosa, H. Finch, K. Fallon and I. Shekhets. The nationality of the fifth woman, identified only as E. Wols, was yet not known.

The three crew members have been identified as Captain Laxman Prakash Vikram Shaha, co-pilot Sophia Singh and air hostess Sahara Sherpa.

The four Nepali male passengers who died in the crash were identified as N.L. Sherpa, Ishwar Rizal, K. Rai and Prakash Omgai.

Police spokesperson Bigyan Raj Sharma said the aircraft was headed for Lukla in northern Nepal, considered the gateway to Mt Everest.

However, bad weather due to a raging monsoon prevented the aircraft from landing at the airport named after Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa, forcing it to come back towards Kathmandu.

Nepal’s official media said the pilot had reported that the engine generator had failed.

On the way to the capital, the aircraft crashed in Makwanpur district, close to Kathmandu valley.

But despite the closeness to the capital, lack of motorable roads and inclement weather prevented rescue teams, including an army helicopter carrying doctors, from reaching the crash site for hours.

This is the second major air disaster suffered by Nepal in two years. Bad weather, pilot error, difficult terrain, bad local airports and technical failures are held to be the main causes.

Most of the crashes occur in monsoon.

In 2008, a domestic airline crashed in the Everest region, killing 24 people, including 12 German tourists, a Nepali minister and his wife and noted conservationists.

The crash comes at a time Nepal is celebrating the entry of a Nepali airline to Bhutan, the first international airline to start flights to the Buddhist kingdom.

It also clouds efforts to celebrate 2011 as tourism year targeted to bring in 1 million tourists.

(Sudeshna Sarkar can be contacted at sudeshna.s@ians.in)