Kathmandu, May 30, (dpa/GNA) – Nepalese search and rescue teams have recovered at least a dozen bodies from the wreckage of a plane, found in the foothills of Nepal’s Himalayas on Monday, a day after it went missing with 22 people on board, according to officials.
“A dozen bodies have been recovered so far. The search and rescue teams are searching for others at the crash site,” Nepal police spokesperson Bishnu Kumar KC told dpa.
However, an international mountain guide who is in the Nepal Army search and rescue team currently at the crash site said 15 bodies had been recovered as of 1 pm (0715 GMT). There was a very slim chance of finding any survivors in the wreckage discovered at an altitude of around 4,000 metres, Narendra Shahi said.
“The bodies are scattered around the crash site in extremely difficult mountainous terrain. We are still searching for the missing ones,” Shahi told dpa by phone.
The plane was found in Sanosware in Mustang district, a Himalayan district northwest of Kathmandu, more than 20 hours after it was first reported missing. The rescue team could not immediately reach the site due to bad weather.
The Tara Airlines plane was making the quick flight to Jomsom from Pokhara, a popular tourist hub around 200 kilometres west of Kathmandu, with three crew members and 19 passengers on board when it lost contact with air traffic control at around 9:55 am on Sunday, according to the Nepal Police spokesperson.
There were four Indians, two Germans and 16 Nepali nationals on board, police said.
The missing aircraft, a Tara Air Twin Otter 9N-AET, was 43 years old, according to Flightradar24, a website which tracks flights in real-time.
The Pokhara-Jomsom flight usually takes only around 20 minutes and is considered one of the most accident-prone routes, even with Nepal’s poor track record on air safety. At least 74 people have died on the route in five plane crashes since 1997, according to the Nepali Times.
Nepal has also seen several larger plane crashes. In 2018, a US-Bangla Airlines plane from Dhaka, crash-landed at the country’s only international airport in Kathmandu, killing 49 people.
Jomsom airport, a small airport in the middle of rugged mountains, is the gateway for tourists trekking to Upper Mustang. Many pilgrims also use the airport to visit the shrine at Muktinath, sacred to Hindus and Buddhists.
GNA