Fifteen people died and six others were injured when an Agni Air Dornier 228 passenger aircraft crashed at a remote airfield in Nepal’s northern Mustang region on Monday, nepalnews.com reported on Monday.
The plane, which took off from Nepal’s second city of Pokhara, went down near Jomsom, a short landing field surrounded by tall peaks. There were three local national crew on board, sixteen Indians and two Danes.
The plane hit a hillside while on its approach to Jomsom, nepalnews said. Nepal Army personnel from a nearby barracks helped rescue the survivors. Two died on the way to hospital.
The dead have not been named. The only survivor among the crew, air-hostess R. Haiju, initially survived the crash but died later in a hospital in Pokhara.
Jomsom is a popular destination with trekkers heading for the pilgrimage site at Muktinath in northern Mustang.
Another Agni Air Dornier crashed at Makawanpur in Nepal in August 2010, and a Buddha Air Beechcraft 1900D crashed near the capital Kathmandu in September 2011.
