» 09/26/2011 13:44 NEPAL Tourist plane crashes during tour to Everest. 19 dead by Kalpit Parajuli The aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff to slamming into a hill 15 km south of Kathmandu. Mostly foreign tourists on board. Bad weather and fog the probable cause of the accident. It is the fourth air crash in less than two years.
Kathmandu (AsiaNews) - A plane used for tourist tours around Mount Everest crashed yesterday morning, 15 km south of Kathmandu. The toll is 19 dead, 10 Indians, three Americans, one Japanese, three Nepalese and two crewmen. A few hours after the crash, rescuers found a survivor in the rubble, 36 years old Nepalese Nirajan Karmacharya, who died later in hospital.
The cause of the accident are still unknown, but according to some witnesses the Buddha Air Beechcraft aircraft was flying very low because of thick fog and exploded shortly after impact.
This is the first crash of the Buddha Air Beechcraft. It is one of several private Nepalese companies that offer tourists the possibility to fly over the roof of the world, for about 78 euros. The flight time is about an hour and usually occurs early in the morning to take advantage of favourable weather conditions.
During the monsoon season aviation accidents are common in Nepal, because of poor visibility due to fog and rain. In December 2010 a plane carrying three crew members, around 22 people, crashed into a mountain shortly after takeoff from a small airstrip, 140 km east of Kathmandu. The passengers were mostly Bhutanese citizens on pilgrimage who had chartered a plane to visit a sacred Buddhist site in the area. In November 2010 a helicopter disintegrated against a cliff near Mount Everest, during a rescue mission to save two stranded climbers. Three more months before again in the Everest region, another plane had crashed because of bad weather, killing 14 people.
Air travel is one of the principal means of transport for the people of Nepal. Nepal has a limited road infrastructure and many communities in the mountains and hills are accessible only on foot or by plane.
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