Rescue workers in Nepal have recovered 20 bodies from the crash site of a plane that went missing with 22 people on board over the weekend.
“Efforts are underway to bring the bodies to Kathmandu,” Teknath Sitaula, a spokesman for the capital’s Tribhuvan International Airport said.
The search for the others is continuing, Deo Chandra Lal, a spokesperson for Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority said on Monday.
“The weather is very bad but we were able to take a team to the crash site. No other flight has been possible,” he said.
The flight had 19 passengers and 3 crew members on the De Havilland Canada DHC-6-300 Twin Otter aircraft, which was operated by Nepali carrier Tara Air when it went missing.
The aircraft 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, according to government officials.
It departed from the tourist town of Pokhara, 125km west of the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu, and was heading for the popular tourist and pilgrimage site Jomsom, The Guardian reported.
Rescue operations were halted by darkness and the weather on Sunday night, but an army helicopter and private choppers continued the search on Monday.
The plane was identified and posted online by Narayan Silwan, a spokesperson for the army, and he identified the crash site as Sanosware in Thasang-2.
Crash site: Sanosware, Thasang-2, Mustang pic.twitter.com/OcN93N1Qyb
— NASpokesperson (@NaSpokesperson) May 30, 2022
Nepal has a record of air accidents, due in part to it being home to the world’s 14 highest mountains.
The mountainous nations’ weather is prone to sudden change and the airstrips are often located in areas that are hard to reach.
In early 2018, a US-Bangla Airlines flight from Dhaka to Kathmandu crashed on landing and caught fire, killing 51 of the 71 onboard.
All 167 aboard a Pakistan International Airlines plane were killed when it crashed into a hill as it tried to land in Kathmandu in the early 90s.
