Helicopter with 5 people on board crashes in Nepal, all killed

KATHMANDU — Four Chinese tourists and a Nepali pilot were killed on Wednesday when a helicopter crashed in the mountains in the northwest region of the capital, officials said.

A police official said all five persons, including the pilot, on board the helicopter belonging to private airline ‘Air Dynasty’ were killed in the crash at the Shivapuri National Park area in Nuwakot district, some 30 km northwest of Kathmandu.

According to the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal, the helicopter was heading towards Rasuwa’s Syafrubesi area from Kathmandu with four Chinese tourists – three men and one woman. The chopper was piloted by captain Arun Malla.

The chopper took off from the Tribhuvan International Airport at 1.54 pm and lost contact with the tower just three minutes after take off, it said in a press release. It crashed at around 2 pm local time.

The bodies were taken to Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital at Maharajgunj in Kathmandu for postmortem, the airline’s officials said.

The government has formed a three-member committee to probe the incident.

Government spokesperson Prithvi Subba Gurung said an emergency cabinet meeting decided to form a committee headed by Nepal Army’s Senior Pilot Subash Thapa to investigate the crash. The committee has been given 30 days to submit its report.

The crash comes just two weeks after a Saurya Airlines plane crashed at the Tribhuvan International Airport on July 24. The crash claimed the lives of 18 people on board, with the captain being the sole survivor.

The latest incident raises serious concerns about air safety over the skies of the Himalayan nation, which has witnessed numerous air crashes in recent years.