Reporting from Gaurav Gowda

LONDON – In tragic news coming out of Nepal, an ATR 72-500, which was flying between Kathmandu (KTM) – Pokhara Airport (PKR) in Nepal, has crashed while attempting to land at the airport amid bad weather.

Details on this incident are still developing, there was a total of 68 passengers & four crew members onboard this flight of YT691.

There has been no update on the number of survivors, and videos posted on Twitter show massive smoke emerging out of the crash site seen.

Pokhara Airport has now been closed for all operations until further notice. The aircraft belonged to the local airline “Yeti Airlines”.

“A total of 68 passengers and four crew members were on board the Yeti airlines aircraft that crashed between the old airport and Pokhara International Airport,” a spokesperson of Yeti airlines was quoted by “The Kathmandu Post”.

Rescue operations are underway, it is being said that the aircraft crashed between the old and new airport of Pokhara.

It is understood that the aircraft in question is 9N-ANC, a 15.5-year-old ATR 72 that was originally delivered in August 2007 to Kingfisher Airlines.

Yeti Airlines took delivery of the aircraft back in April 2019, having previously been with Investec and Nok Air.

This is a developing story that will be updated with the total count of casualties and survivors or any further development.

UPDATE #1 @ 0859 UK time – Scenes from the crash have been posted by Nepal press over social media.

UPDATE #2 @ 0910 UK time – More footage has emerged showing the aircraft in its last few seconds of flight before appearing to stall and crash.