In 2010, Anju Khatiwada joined the workforce of Nepal’s Yeti Airlines, following in the footsteps of her late spouse, a pilot who had passed away in a tragic accident four years prior when a small passenger plane he was flying for the domestic carrier went down minutes before landing.
On Sunday, Khatiwada, 44, was the co-pilot on a Yeti Airlines flight from Kathmandu that crashed as it approached the city of Pokhara, resulting in the loss of at least 68 lives in the Himalayan nation’s deadliest plane accident in thirty years. So far, no survivors have been found among the 72 individuals on board.
“Her husband, Dipak Pokhrel, died in 2006 in a crash of a Twin Otter plane of Yeti Airlines in Jumla,” airline spokesman Sudarshan Bartaula told Reuters, referring to Khatiwada. “She got her pilot training with the money she got from the insurance after her husband’s death.”
A pilot with more than 6,400 hours of flying experience, Khatiwada had previously flown the popular tourist route from the capital, Kathmandu, to the country’s second-largest city, Pokhara, Bartaula said.
The body of Kamal KC, the captain of the flight, who had more than 21,900 hours of flight time, has been recovered and identified.
