At least five dead when helicopter carrying Mexican tourists crashes in Nepal

At least five of the six passengers of the helicopter carrying five Mexican tourists died this Tuesday when the plane crashed in the Everest region of Nepal.

“Locals discovered the downed helicopter,” said Likhu Pike Municipality Vice Chairman Nwang Lhakpa Sherpa, saying authorities immediately launched a search and rescue operation.

There were six people in the helicopter. five Mexican tourists and a pilotwhich belonged to Manang Air, he explained to EFE head of operations and security of the Nepali company, Raju Neupane.

According to Neupane, authorities lost contact with the plane this morning. The accident happened in the northern district of Solukhumbu, where Mount Everest is located. Nepal, where air accidents occur with some frequency, has been the subject of repeated international sanctions for its lack of control. Actually, The European Union (EU) has banned Nepali airlines from entering its territory since 2013.

In February 2019, seven people died after a helicopter carrying seven passengers crashed, including Nepal’s Tourism and Civil Aviation Minister Rabindra Adhikari. The crash comes just months after another Altitude Air helicopter crashed in a jungle area in northern Nepal’s Gorkha district, killing six people, including the pilot, while one passenger survived.

The worst plane crash in recent years in Nepal happened in January 2023, when a Yeti Airlines flight crashed with 72 passengers and no survivorsa disaster attributed by the authorities to human error.