Sonu Jaiswal, who livestreamed from the plane seconds before it crashed [Source: BBC]

In the hours after Nepal’s deadliest plane crash for 30 years, a video went viral in India – it showed one of the victims, Sonu Jaiswal, livestreaming from the plane just seconds before the crash.

He was part of a group of four friends from Ghazipur in India who were visiting Nepal, and were on the flight from Kathmandu to Pokhara.

In the footage, Pokhara airport’s surroundings are visible from the doomed plane as it comes into land, those on board unaware they are just moments from death.

None of the 72 people on board are believed to have survived the crash.

The video shows the plane gliding gently over the honeycombs of buildings dotting brown-green fields, before the man filming it turns the camera around and smiles.

He then turns it around again to show other passengers in the aircraft.

Moments pass, then there’s a deafening crash.

Within seconds huge flames and smoke fill the screen as the camera keeps recording. What sounds like the screeching of an engine is audible, as well as breaking glass and then screams before the video ends.

Friends and family members of Sonu Jaiswal told reporters that they had watched the video on his Facebook account, confirming its authenticity.

“Sonu did the [livestream] when the plane crashed in a gorge near the Seti River,” Mukesh Kashyap, Jaiswal’s friend, told reporters.

Local journalist Shashikant Tiwari told the BBC that Kashyap showed him the video on Jaiswal’s Facebook profile, which is set to private.

It is not clear how Jaiswal accessed the internet to stream from the plane.

Abhishek Pratap Shah, a former lawmaker in Nepal, told Indian news channel NDTV that rescuers had recovered the phone on which the video was found from the plane’s wreckage.

“It [the video clip] was sent by one of my friends, who received it from a police officer. It is a real record,” Mr Shah told NDTV.

Officials in Nepal have not confirmed his claim or commented on the footage, which could help crash investigators in their work.