Nepali rescuers pulled 14 bodies on
Monday from the mangled wreckage of a passenger plane strewn across a
mountainside that went missing in the Himalayas with 22 people on board.
Air traffic control lost contact with the Twin Otter aircraft operated by
Nepali carrier Tara Air shortly after taking off from Pokhara in western
Nepal on Sunday morning headed for Jomsom, a popular trekking destination.
Helicopters operated by the military and private firms scoured the remote
mountainous area all day Sunday, aided by teams on foot, but called off the
search when night fell, as bad weather hampered the recovery operation at
around 3,800-4,000 metres (12,500-13,000 feet) above sea level.
After the search resumed on Monday, the army shared on social media a photo
of aircraft parts and other debris littering a sheer mountainside including a
wing with the registration number 9N-AET clearly visible.
Four Indians were on board as well as two Germans, with the remainder
Nepalis. There was no word on the cause of the crash.
The Civil Aviation Authority confirmed that the plane “met an accident” at
14,500 feet (4,420 metres) in the Sanosware area of Thasang rural
municipality in Mustang district.
“Fourteen bodies have been recovered so far, search continues for the
remaining. The weather is very bad but we were able to take a team to the
crash site. No other flight has been possible,” authority spokesman Deo
Chandra Lal Karn told AFP.
Pokhara Airport spokesman Dev Raj Subedi told AFP the rescuers had followed
GPS, mobile and satellite signals to narrow down the location.
Pradeep Gauchan, a local official, said that the wreckage was at a height of
around 3,800-4,000 metres (12,500-13,000 feet) above sea level.
“It is very difficult to reach there by foot. One team has been dropped close
to the area by a helicopter but it is cloudy right now so flights have not
been possible,” Gauchan told AFP earlier in the day.
“Helicopters are on standby waiting for the clouds to clear,” he said.
According to the Aviation Safety Network website, the aircraft was made by
Canada’s de Havilland and made its first flight more than 40 years ago in
1979.
– Past crashes –
Tara Air is a subsidiary of Yeti Airlines, a privately owned domestic carrier
that services many remote destinations across Nepal.
It suffered its last fatal accident in 2016 on the same route when a plane
with 23 on board crashed into a mountainside in Myagdi district.
Nepal’s air industry has boomed in recent years, carrying goods and people
between hard-to-reach areas as well as foreign trekkers and climbers.
But it has long been plagued by poor safety due to insufficient training and
maintenance.
The European Union has banned all Nepali airlines from its airspace over
safety concerns.
The Himalayan country also has some of the world’s most remote and tricky
runways, flanked by snow-capped peaks with approaches that pose a challenge
even for accomplished pilots.
The weather can also change quickly in the mountains, creating treacherous
flying conditions.
In March 2018, a US-Bangla Airlines plane crash-landed near Kathmandu’s
notoriously difficult international airport, skidded into a football field
and burst into flames.
Fifty-one people died and 20 miraculously escaped the burning wreckage but
sustained serious injuries.
That accident was Nepal’s deadliest since 1992, when all 167 people aboard a
Pakistan International Airlines plane died when it crashed on approach to
Kathmandu airport.
Just two months earlier a Thai Airways aircraft had crashed near the same
airport, killing 113 people.BSS/AFP