Rescue workers in Nepal have recovered 14 bodies from the crash site of a small plane carrying 22 people that went down in a remote region, according to an airport official.
“The search for others is continuing,�? said Tek Raj Sitaula, a spokesman for the Tribhuvan international airport in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu.
Nepal’s army said earlier on Monday that search and rescue troops had located the plane’s crash site, with army spokesperson Narayan Silwal posting a picture on Twitter of the wreckage with the plane’s tail number clearly visible.
The small passenger plane went missing in cloudy weather and authorities said bad weather and mountainous terrain had hampered their efforts to locate the aircraft, a De Havilland Canada DHC-6-300 Twin Otter operated by privately owned Tara Air.
The plane took off on Sunday morning for a 20-minute flight but lost contact with the control tower five minutes before it was scheduled to land, government officials said. It had departed from the tourist town of Pokhara, 125km (80 miles) west of Kathmandu, and was bound for Jomsom, a popular tourist and pilgrimage site.
State-owned Nepal Television said villagers had seen an aircraft on fire at the source of the Lyanku Khola river at the foot of the Himalayan mountain Manapathi, in a district bordering Tibet. “Ground search teams are proceeding toward that direction,�? Tara Air spokesperson Sudarshan Gartaula said. “It could be a fire by villagers or by cowherds. It could be anything.�?
The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal also said a team was was on its way to the area. The airline said the plane was carrying four Indians, two Germans and 16 Nepalis, including three crew.
The flight-tracking website Flightradar24 said the missing aircraft, with registration number 9N-AET, made its first flight in April 1979. The weather office said there had been thick cloud cover in the Pokhara-Jomson area since the morning.
Nepal, home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains, including Everest, has a record of air accidents. Its weather can change suddenly and airstrips are typically located in mountainous areas that are hard to reach.
A US-Bangla Airlines flight from Dhaka to Kathmandu crashed on landing and caught fire in early 2018, killing 51 of the 71 people on board.
In 1992, all 167 people aboard a Pakistan International Airlines plane were killed when it ploughed into a hill as it tried to land in Kathmandu.