Brit is confirmed dead in Nepal plane crash

A British man was today confirmed as being among the dozens of victims who were killed after a passenger plane crashed into a gorge in Nepal before setting on fire.

Ruan Crighton was on board the Yeti Airlines ATR 72 flight when it plummeted into a steep gorge, smashed into pieces and burst into flames as it approached the central city of Pokhara on Sunday. 

Mr Crighton, a UK national, was named as one of the 72 people on board the flight by the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal.

The UK Foreign Office confirmed Mr Crighton had died in Nepal and his family were being supported by specialist officers.

Mr Crighton, originally from Brentwood, Essex, trained as a professional dancer and performed as a ballet dancer with the Slovakian National Ballet from 2008 to 2013 after graduating from London’s Central School of Ballet.

He told the BBC in 2008, then aged 19, that he realised he wanted to be a professional ballet dancer after the first term at the Central School of Ballet.

‘After watching the second years and third years and being in the environment of dancers and having watched dress rehearsals and gone to a few shows it felt like something I wanted to do,’ Mr Crighton said at the time.

He later performed with the Finnish National Ballet in Helsinki, Finland, from 2013 to 2019, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Source of data and images: dailymail