68 Killed In Nepal's Deadliest Plane Crash In Three Decades

Nepalese Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has set up a panel to investigate the accident

Scores of rescue workers and onlookers crowded near a steep gorge outside a resort town in central Nepal where a regional passenger plane crashed Sunday, as rescuers combed the wreckage on the edge of the cliff and in the ravine below.

So far, 68 people have been confirmed dead after a regional passenger plane with 72 aboard crashed into a gorge while landing at a newly opened airport in the resort town of Pokhara, according to an announcement posted by the country's Civil Aviation Authority to Twitter. It's the country's deadliest airplane accident in three decades.

It was not immediately clear what caused the accident.

A witness said he saw the aircraft spinning violently in the air after it began to attempt a landing, watching from the terrace of his house. Gaurav Gurung said the plane fell nose-first towards its left and then crashed into the gorge.

At the crash site near the Seti River, about 1.6 kilometers (nearly a mile) away from Pokhara International Airport, rescuers sprayed fire hoses and heaved ropes down to another smoldering part of the wreck below. Some bodies, burned beyond recognition, were carried by firefighters to hospitals, where grief-stricken relatives had assembled. At Kathmandu airport, family members appeared distraught as they were escorted in and at times exchange heated words with officials as they waited for information.