Facebook live by flyer captures Nepal plane crash

A cellphone recovered from the wreckage of the Yeti Airlines flight that crashed in Nepal on Sunday, has apparently captured the final, very disturbing moments of the flight.

The twin-engine ATR 72 aircraft from Kathmandu -- which carried 72 people -- crashed shortly before landing in Pokhara, a major tourist destination in the Himalayan nation. At least 68 of the passengers are dead and remaining unaccounted for.

The video, which is making the rounds of social media, opens with shots of passengers sitting inside the plane and the city below seen from the window as the plane circles before landing. Suddenly there is an explosion and the screen goes topsy-turvy. The final few seconds show a horrifying fire outside the window and cries of distraught passengers can be heard.

Moments before the tragic plane crash in Nepal today streamed by a passenger on Facebook live…Don’t take the gift of life for granted. pic.twitter.com/Xix1EZjeEm

— Mike Crispi (@MikeCrispi) January 15, 2023

Another video from the ground had captured the flight's progress as it started landing. The plane suddenly tilted to the left, turned upside down and reports say it then burst into a ball of fire.

Nepal plane crash near #PokharaAirport caught on camera from ground, these visuals show the plane engine caught fire 🔥, which may have been a bird hit after which it just went down tilted. #NepalPlaneCrash #Yeti pic.twitter.com/9ZTwZDE5At

— The Voice Of Citizens®️ (@TVOCNews) January 16, 2023

There were five Indian passengers on board, all of whom were from Ghazipur in Uttar Pradesh. One of them, Sonu Jaiswal, was apparently doing a Facebook Live shortly before the flight crashed. He is among the dead. The same video is found on his Facebook account, which is unverified.

Abhishek Pratap Shah, a former MP of Nepal and Central committee member of the Nepali Congress, who sent the video footage, told TV channels that he received the footage from a friend and it was recovered from the wreckage. "It was sent by one of my friends who received it from a police officer. It is a real record. It is today's video as the flight was about to land," Mr Shah said.

Horrifying last moments of an ATR plane crash from Nepal in Pokhara that was bound for Kathmandu. All 72 people on board are dead. pic.twitter.com/4JZIvnThPQ

— Wajahat Kazmi (@KazmiWajahat) January 15, 2023

Rescue work is expected to continue today (Monday) and search is on for the plane's black box, which is expected to shed light on the reasons of the crash. Pokhara is only a 25-minute flight from Kathmandu, the capital of the Himalayan nation.