Two Americans and two US lawful permanent residents were aboard the Yeti plane that crashed in Nepal on Sunday, the US State Department confirmed Wednesday.
“Our thoughts are with the families of those on board,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said Wednesday. “The United States stands ready to support Nepal in any way we can at this difficult time.”
The Yeti Airlines flight from Kathmandu that plunged into a gorge in the foothills of the Himalayas on Sunday, killing all 72 on board, was co-piloted by Anju Khatiwada, who had undergone years of pilot training in the United States after she her husband died in an accident. 2006 plane crash while flying for the same airline.
ACCIDENT IN NEPAL: VIDEO FROM INSIDE THE PLANE SHOWS THE FINAL MOMENTS OF THE PASSENGERS
Nepalese rescuers inspect the wreckage at the plane crash site in Pokhara, Nepal, Monday, January 16, 2023.
(AP Photo/Krishna Mani Baral)
Her colleagues described her as a skilled pilot who was highly motivated, The Associated Press reported. Authorities on Tuesday began returning some identified bodies to relatives and said they would send the ATR 72-500 plane’s data recorder to France for analysis to determine what caused the crash.
Rescuers walk through the crash site among the wreckage of a passenger plane in Pokhara, Nepal, Monday, January 16, 2023.
(AP Photo/Yunish Gurung)
Khatiwada started flying for Yeti Airlines in 2020, four years after her husband, Dipak Pokhrel, died in an accident. She was flying a DHC-6 Twin Otter 300 plane for the same airline when it crashed in Nepal’s Jumla district and caught fire, killing all nine people on board. Khatiwada later remarried.
This undated photo provided by Deepak Jaiswal shows Deepak’s younger brother, Sonu Jaiswal, 25, who died in a plane crash in Nepal on Sunday, January 15, 2023.
(Deepak Jaiswal via AP)
Inside the aircraft, passenger Sonu Jaiswal was filming the plane’s descent on a smartphone seconds before it turned left and crashed into a gorge. The camera went on to record the screeching sound of an engine along with fire and smoke.
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The deaths of Khatiwada and Jaiswal are part of a deadly pattern in Nepal, a country that has seen a series of plane crashes over the years, with Sunday’s being the deadliest in 30 years. Past accidents have been partly attributed to difficult terrain, bad weather and aging fleets.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
