The search and rescue teams have found the black box of an ATR 72 aircraft of Yeti Airlines that crashed in Pokhara on Sunday killing at least 68 people.

Prem Nath Thakur, spokesperson of Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport, confirmed with the Post that the black box has been recovered. Thakur is also a member of the rescue coordination committee.

According to Jagannath Niraula, spokesperson of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal, the black box has been handed over to Nepal Army and will be submitted to a probe team in Kathmandu later today.

The black box, also referred to as a Flight Data Recorder, is a device that documents all of the activities of an aircraft. The black box provides vital data that help investigators figure out what happened during the flight.

The Cabinet meeting on Sunday afternoon had formed a five-member probe committee under Nagendra Ghimire, former secretary at the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, to investigate the accident.

Meanwhile, the identification of 35 bodies out of 68 retrieved from a Yeti Airlines aircraft crash site in Pokhara of Kaski district in western Nepal has been ascertained as of Monday morning.

According to police, a search for four people missing in the crash is underway.

Rescuers are having a tough time due to the difficult terrain. They resumed their rescue and search attempts at the crash site located on Seti River Gorge on Monday morning. The rescue efforts were put off on Sunday evening till this morning.

Police Inspector Gyan Bahadur Khadka, acting information officer of Kaski District Police Office, said all the retrieved bodies have been kept at the Pokhara Academy of Health Sciences and will be handed over to the relatives after an autopsy.

Yeti Airlines flight NYT 691 from Kathmandu to Pokhara crashed just before landing at the new international airport on Sunday morning in the worst domestic aviation disaster to date.

According to a statement issued by the civil aviation regulator, 68 people out of 72 on board the aircraft have been confirmed dead as of Sunday evening.