Bodies pulled from wreckage of missing Nepal plane
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 on 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 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 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 said. Pokhara Airport spokesman Dev Raj Subedi said 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 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 said earlier in the day. 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. (AFP)