Two UK experts to help Nepal crash probe

AIR accident investigators from the UK headed to Nepal yesterday to investigate the plane crash that killed seven Britons.

The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) said it was sending two staff to Katmandu to assist local authorities investigating the disaster, which killed all 19 people onboard shortly after take-off from the capital city’s airport.

The British group of seven, who arrived in Nepal on Wednesday and were due to begin trekking in the Himalayas yesterday, were travelling with Hampshire-based travel company Explore Worldwide.

They were named as Raymond Eagle, 58, from Macclesfield, Cheshire, Timothy Oakes, 57, from Winwick, near Warrington, Vincent Kelly, 50, from Lostock, Bolton, and his brother Darren, 45, who moved from Bolton to the village of Isle of Whithorn in Galloway a few years ago.

Christopher Davey, 51, 
from Northampton; Stephen Holding, 60, from Stoke-on-Trent; and lawyer Benjamin Ogden, 27, from London, also died.

The twin-propeller Dornier plane crashed in a field shortly after taking off from Katmandu on Friday 
morning.

Five Chinese people, three Nepalese passengers and four crew members were also killed, with reports suggesting the accident was caused either by a bird strike or through 
pilot error.

Explore Worldwide, the company the victims were travelling through, said ­yesterday that it had a ­representative in Nepal to provide support.