Kathmandu/IBNS: In a heartbreaking incident, Anju Khatiwada, who joined Nepal's Yeti Airlines in 2010 and was the co-pilot of the ill-destined flight that crashed in Pokhara on Sunday, met the same fate as her husband, a pilot killed in a crash 16 years earlier.

On Sunday, Khatiwada, 44, was the co-pilot on a Yeti Airlines flight from Kathmandu that crashed as it approached the city of Pokhara, killing all 72 people on board in the Himalayan nation's deadliest plane accident in three decades.

"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," he added.

A pilot with more than 6,400 hours of flying time, Khatiwada had previously flown the popular tourist route from the capital, Kathmandu, to the country's second-largest city, Pokhara.