Rescue teams searching a mountainside in Nepal on Monday recovered the bodies of 21 of the 22 people who were aboard a plane that crashed the day before, authorities said.
The search for the remaining person is continuing, Kathmandu airport spokesman Tek Nath Sitaula said.
Recovery efforts were delayed because some bodies were trapped under the wreckage of the plane. Rescuers working with their bare hands had difficulty moving the metal debris.
Aerial photos of the crash site showed aircraft parts strewn on rocks and moss on the side of a mountain gorge.
This photo made available by Fishtail Air shows the remains of a plane in a gorge in Sanosware, Mustang district, near the mountainous town of Jomsom, west of Kathmandu, Nepal, Monday, May 30, 2022.
Fishtail Air via AP
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Plane disappears in the mountains of Nepal with 22 people on board
Tara Air’s Twin Otter turboprop lost contact with the airport tower on Sunday while flying a scheduled 20-minute flight in an area of deep river gorges and mountain tops.
Relatives waited most of the day at the airport for news of their loved ones.
Four Indians and two Germans were on the plane, Tara Air said. The three crew members and other passengers were Nepali citizens, she said.
The German news agency dpa reported that the two Germans were a man and a woman from the western state of Hesse.
“Unfortunately, we have to assume at this point that the two people are no longer alive,” a spokesman for the Hesse state Ministry of the Interior was quoted as saying by dpa. “On the part of the Hessian police, the relatives have already been informed and care measures have been initiated.”
Local news reports said the passengers included two Nepalese families, one with four members and the other with seven.
The military said the plane crashed in Sanosware in Mustang district, near the mountainous city of Jomsom, where it was headed after taking off from the tourist city of Pokhara, 200 kilometers (125 miles) west of Kathmandu.
According to tracking data from flightradar24.com, the 43-year-old aircraft took off from Pokhara at 9:55 a.m. and transmitted its last signal at 10:07 a.m. at an altitude of 12,825 feet (3,900 meters).
The plane’s destination is popular with foreign trekkers who traverse its mountain trails and Indian and Nepalese pilgrims who visit the revered Muktinath temple.
The remains were located by villagers who had been searching the area for the Yarsagumba fungus, which is commonly known as Himalayan Viagra, according to local news reports.
Read more:
Plane disappears in the mountains of Nepal with 22 people on board
Setopati’s new website quoted a villager, Bishal Magar, as saying they learned about the missing plane on Sunday, but were only able to reach the site on Monday morning after following the smell of fuel.
Magar said it looked like the plane may have hit the top of a smaller mountain and then crashed into a larger mountain.
The Twin Otter, a rugged aircraft originally built by Canadian aircraft manufacturer de Havilland, has been in service in Nepal for some 50 years, during which time it has been involved in some 21 accidents, according to Aviationnepal.com.
The aircraft, with its top-mounted wing and fixed landing gear, is prized for its durability and its ability to take off and land on short runways.
Production of the planes originally ended in the 1980s. Another Canadian company, Viking Air, put the model back into production in 2010.
© 2022 The Canadian Press
Reference-globalnews.ca