Nepali rescuers pulled 14 bodies on
\nMonday from the mangled wreckage of a passenger plane strewn across a
\nmountainside that went missing in the Himalayas with 22 people on board.<\/p>\n
Air traffic control lost contact with the Twin Otter aircraft operated by
\nNepali carrier Tara Air shortly after taking off from Pokhara in western
\nNepal on Sunday morning headed for Jomsom, a popular trekking destination.<\/p>\n
Helicopters operated by the military and private firms scoured the remote
\nmountainous area all day Sunday, aided by teams on foot, but called off the
\nsearch when night fell, as bad weather hampered the recovery operation at
\naround 3,800-4,000 metres (12,500-13,000 feet) above sea level.<\/p>\n
After the search resumed on Monday, the army shared on social media a photo
\nof aircraft parts and other debris littering a sheer mountainside including a
\nwing with the registration number 9N-AET clearly visible.<\/p>\n
Four Indians were on board as well as two Germans, with the remainder
\nNepalis. There was no word on the cause of the crash.<\/p>\n
The Civil Aviation Authority confirmed that the plane “met an accident” at
\n14,500 feet (4,420 metres) in the Sanosware area of Thasang rural
\nmunicipality in Mustang district.<\/p>\n
“Fourteen bodies have been recovered so far, search continues for the
\nremaining. The weather is very bad but we were able to take a team to the
\ncrash site. No other flight has been possible,” authority spokesman Deo
\nChandra Lal Karn told AFP.<\/p>\n
Pokhara Airport spokesman Dev Raj Subedi told AFP the rescuers had followed
\nGPS, mobile and satellite signals to narrow down the location.<\/p>\n
Pradeep Gauchan, a local official, said that the wreckage was at a height of
\naround 3,800-4,000 metres (12,500-13,000 feet) above sea level.<\/p>\n
“It is very difficult to reach there by foot. One team has been dropped close
\nto the area by a helicopter but it is cloudy right now so flights have not
\nbeen possible,” Gauchan told AFP earlier in the day.<\/p>\n
“Helicopters are on standby waiting for the clouds to clear,” he said.<\/p>\n
According to the Aviation Safety Network website, the aircraft was made by
\nCanada’s de Havilland and made its first flight more than 40 years ago in
\n1979.<\/p>\n
– Past crashes –<\/p>\n
Tara Air is a subsidiary of Yeti Airlines, a privately owned domestic carrier
\nthat services many remote destinations across Nepal.<\/p>\n
It suffered its last fatal accident in 2016 on the same route when a plane
\nwith 23 on board crashed into a mountainside in Myagdi district.<\/p>\n
Nepal’s air industry has boomed in recent years, carrying goods and people
\nbetween hard-to-reach areas as well as foreign trekkers and climbers.<\/p>\n
But it has long been plagued by poor safety due to insufficient training and
\nmaintenance.<\/p>\n
The European Union has banned all Nepali airlines from its airspace over
\nsafety concerns.<\/p>\n
The Himalayan country also has some of the world’s most remote and tricky
\nrunways, flanked by snow-capped peaks with approaches that pose a challenge
\neven for accomplished pilots.<\/p>\n
The weather can also change quickly in the mountains, creating treacherous
\nflying conditions.<\/p>\n
In March 2018, a US-Bangla Airlines plane crash-landed near Kathmandu’s
\nnotoriously difficult international airport, skidded into a football field
\nand burst into flames.<\/p>\n
Fifty-one people died and 20 miraculously escaped the burning wreckage but
\nsustained serious injuries.<\/p>\n
That accident was Nepal’s deadliest since 1992, when all 167 people aboard a
\nPakistan International Airlines plane died when it crashed on approach to
\nKathmandu airport.<\/p>\n
Just two months earlier a Thai Airways aircraft had crashed near the same
\nairport, killing 113 people.BSS\/AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-4","category-14"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26743"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26746,"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26743\/revisions\/26746"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}