Plane with 72 people on board crashes in Nepal

At least 16 peo­ple have been killed in a plane crash in west­ern Nepal, a mil­i­tary spokesman said. Hun­dreds of res­cuers are search­ing the hilly crash site.

“We want to be able to recov­er more bod­ies,” Krish­na Bhan­dari told Reuters. “The plane broke apart”

The twin-engine ATR 72, oper­at­ed by Nepal’s Yeti Air, was car­ry­ing 72 peo­ple, includ­ing two infants, four crew mem­bers and 10 for­eign­ers, air­line spokesman Sudar­shan Var­tau­ra said.

“I don’t know your nation­al­i­ty,” he said. “try­ing to find out”

Local tele­vi­sion showed thick black smoke ris­ing from the crash site as res­cuers and crowds gath­ered around the wreckage.

In Nepal, which has 8 of the 14 high­est peaks in the world, includ­ing Mount Ever­est, the weath­er can change sud­den­ly and become dan­ger­ous, and there are quite a few plane crashes.