Nepali plane carrying 22 people crashes leaving at least 14 dead
30 May 2022, 10:54 | Updated: 30 May 2022, 11:30
The wreck of a plane carrying 22 people in Nepal has been found on a mountainside.
A total of 14 people who flew on the Tara Air flight have been confirmed dead by the country's army, with their bodies having been recovered from the crash site.
No update any potential survivors from the small Twin Otter plane was given on Monday morning UK time. Four Indians and two Germans were on board, and the rest of the passengers and all three crew were Nepali.
Photos from the Nepalese army show the plane broken into pieces on a mountainside, surrounded by moss.
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The wings were torn off and the fuselage was broken into pieces, with debris dispersed across the rock face.
The plane lost contact with Tribhuwan International Airport in the capital Kathmandu as it flew around an area with deep gorges and mountaintops in a 20 minute trip.
It came down in Sanosware, in the Mustang district, near to its destination of Jomsom, a mountain town popular with tourists who want to hike in the mountain trails.
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Nepalese and Indian pilgrims also travel there to visit the Muktinath temple, which is sacred to Hindus and Buddhists.
The plane took off from Pokhara, a resort town 125 miles west of Kathmandu, at 9.55am and sent its last signal at 10.07am while flying at 12,825 feet, data from flightradar.24.com shows.
"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," Nepal's Civil Aviation Authority spokesman Deo Chandra Lal Karn previously said.
Nepal has a well-publicised history of aircraft incidents. In 2016, a Twin Otter operated by Tara crashed and killed all 23 people on board.
A captain for Buddha Airlines told the Nepali Times in February that "flying in the Himalaya is one of the most challenging in the world because of the terrain and weather".
