Plane crash: 21 bodies found

Rescuers searching a mountainside in Nepal yesterday recovered the bodies of 21 of the 22 people who were on board a plane that crashed a day earlier, officials said.

The search is continuing for the remaining person, Kathmandu airport spokesman Tek Nath Sitaula said.

Aerial photos of the crash site showed aircraft parts scattered on rocks and moss on the side of a mountain gorge.

The Tara Air turboprop Twin Otter lost contact with the airport tower on Sunday while flying on a scheduled 20-minute flight in an area of deep river gorges and mountaintops.

Relatives waited most of the day at the airport for news of their loved ones.

Four Indians and two Germans were on the plane, Tara Air said. The three crew members and other passengers were Nepali nationals, it said.

German news agency dpa reported that the two Germans were a man and a woman from the western state of Hesse.

“Unfortunately, we have to assume at this point that the two people are no longer alive,” dpa quoted a spokesperson for the Hesse state interior ministry as saying. “On the part of the Hessian police, relatives have already been informed and care measures initiated.”

Local news reports said the passengers included two Nepali families, one with four members and the other with seven.

The army said the plane crashed in Sanosware in Mustang district close to the mountain town of Jomsom, where it was heading after taking off from the resort town of Pokhara, 125 miles west of Kathmandu.

According to tracking data from flightradar24. com, the 43-year-old aircraft took off from Pokhara at 9.55am and transmitted its last signal at 10.07am at an altitude of 12,825 feet.

The plane’s destination is popular with foreign hikers who trek on its mountain trails, and with Indian and Nepalese pilgrims who visit the revered Muktinath temple.

The wreckage was located by villagers who had been searching in the area for the Yarsagumba fungus, which is commonly referred to as Himalayan Viagra.

Villager Bishal Magar said they reached the crash site after following the smell of fuel.

Bodies were taken to Kathmandu airport by the Nepalese army.