A passenger aircraft with 72 people on board reportedly crashed while landing at the Pokhara International Airport in Nepal on Sunday morning.
The Yeti airline flight with 68 passengers and four crew members departed from Kathmandu and met with an accident while landing, according to Kaski police chief Ajay KC.
Kathmandu Post quoted Sudarshan Bartaula, spokesperson of Yeti Airlines as saying that the aircraft crashed between the old airport and the Pokhara International Airport.
The tourist town of Pokhara is located about 200km northwest of the capital Kathmandu.
Purported videos and images shared on social media show plumes of smoke billowing from the crash site.
Local state television reported some bodies had been recovered from the crash site in the west of the small Himalayan country, although there has been no confirmation on the toll so far.
The airport has been temporarily shut and a rescue operation is underway.
Twenty-two people died in May last year after a small plane operated by Tara airlines crashed in a mountainous area in the country. The twin-engine aircraft was on a scheduled flight from Pokhara.
Nepal has a high record of plane crashes as it is home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains, including Mount Everest.
In 2018, a US-Bangla Air crash at the Tribhuvan International Airport killed 51 people on board.
Two years prior a Tara airlines Twin Otter plane flying the same route had crashed, killing all 23 aboard.
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