Emergency crews in Nepal recovered the bodies of 22 people from a passenger plane that crashed in the Himalayas, authorities said on Tuesday, and they plan to begin the process of identifying the victims.
“All bodies have been found,” Deo Chandra Lal Karn, spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority, told AFP.
Air traffic controllers lost contact with Nepali company Tara Air’s Twin Otter plane bound for Jomsom, a popular mountaineering destination, shortly after takeoff from Pokhara in western Nepal on Sunday morning.
The wreckage of the plane was found a day later, at an altitude of 4,000 meters.
On Monday, ten bodies were transported by helicopter to Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital.
The remaining 12 people remained at the crash site, which was affected by bad weather conditions, which is difficult to access and complicates the evacuation operation.
About 60 people were mobilized for the rescue mission, including members of the army and police, mountain guides and local residents.
Many climbed miles to reach the crash site, and many camped at the scene.
The cause of the accident has not yet been determined. Pokhara airport spokesman Dev Raj Subedi said the plane did not catch fire and looked like it had hit a rock.
There were four Indians and two Germans on board. Four Indians, a divorced couple, their 15-year-old daughter and 22-year-old son were on vacation.
“There was a court order for the father to spend 10 days with the family every year, so they went on a trip,” Indian police officer Uttam Sonawane told AFP.
According to the Air Safety Network website, the aircraft was manufactured by the Canadian company De Havilland and made its first flight more than 40 years ago in 1979.
Tara Air is a subsidiary of Yeti Airlines, a private national airline with flights to remote destinations in Nepal.
On the same route, the company had a fatal accident in 2016 when a plane with 23 people on board crashed into a mountainside in Myagdi district.
Nepal’s air industry has grown in recent years, transporting goods and people, as well as foreign climbers, between hard-to-reach areas.
But the country faces major safety issues, with poorly trained pilots and aircraft maintenance issues. The European Union has banned all Nepalese airlines from accessing its airspace for security reasons.
In addition, the country has some of the most remote and challenging runways, surrounded by snowy peaks and variable weather conditions, where landing is a challenge for even the most skilled pilots.
source: Noticias
