"There Was Darkness All Around": Witness Shares Details Of Nepal Plane Crash

Local resident Kalpana Sunar was washing clothes in the front yard of her house on Sunday when she saw an aircraft hurtling towards her, before being jolted by a bomb-like explosion caused by the Yeti Airlines plane, which crashed while landing in Nepal's resort city of Pokhara.

The flight took off from Kathmandu's Tribhuvan International Airport at 10:33 am on Sunday and crashed on the bank of the Seti River between the old airport and the new airport in Pokhara, minutes before landing.

At least 68 people have died and four people are still missing, officials said, in Nepal's worst aviation tragedy in over three decades. There were 15 foreigners, including five Indian nationals, onboard the ill-fated flight.

Sunar was washing clothes in the front yard of her house when she saw an aircraft falling from the sky and coming in her direction, The Kathmandu Post newspaper quoted her as saying on Monday.

"The aircraft was tilted at an unusual angle and moments later, I heard a bomb-like explosion," she was quoted as saying.

"Then I saw a plume of black smoke billowing from the Seti River gorge," she added.

One of the plane's wings hit the ground about 12 metres from the house of another local resident Geeta Sunar.

"Had the aircraft fallen just a bit closer to our home, the settlements would have been destroyed," the newspaper quoted her as saying.

"There was so much damage at the incident site, but since it happened away from the settlement, there were no casualties or any damage to the settlements," she said, adding that there was fire on both sides of the Seti River gorge, with bodies scattered everywhere.

Children who witnessed the incident said they could hear passengers screaming from inside the aircraft as it came hurtling from the sky, the report said.

Two 11-year-olds, Samir and Prajwal Pariyar initially thought the aircraft was a toy, but when it came close, they ran away, the report said.

"Suddenly, there was darkness all around due to the smoke," said Samir, adding, "It looked like the aircraft's tyre would touch us as it crashed." Another eyewitness, Bainsha Bahadur BK, said if the aircraft had come straight, it would have crash landed into the settlements and caused more damage.

"Around seven or eight windows of the aircraft were still intact and we thought that the passengers might still be alive," the newspaper quoted him as saying.

"But the fire spread across the other half of the plane in an instant, as we watched in horror," he added.

Nepalese rescuers resumed their search on Monday for four persons still missing after rescue efforts were suspended on Sunday evening.

Meanwhile, the black box of the aircraft was recovered from the accident site on Monday, officials said.