The operating airline and officials said a passenger plane with 22 people on board went missing in Nepal on May 29 as bad weather hampered the search operation.
Yunish Gurung | Afp | beautiful pictures
Officials told Reuters that a plane operated by a private airline in Nepal went missing on Sunday with 22 people on board, saying cloudy weather prevented helicopters from searching. fly into the final determination area of the flight.
The Tara Air plane took off from the tourist town of Pokhara, about 125 kilometers (80 miles) west of the capital, Kathmandu, and headed for Jomsom, about 80 kilometers northwest, officials said.
Tara Air primarily flies Canadian-built Twin Otter turbofans.
“A search helicopter returned to Jomsom due to bad weather without determining the plane’s location,” the Nepal Civil Aviation Authority said in a statement.
“Helicopters are ready to take off to search from Kathmandu, Pokhara and Jomsom as weather conditions improve. Army and police search teams have moved towards the site.”
The airline said the plane was carrying four Indians, two Germans and 16 Nepalese, including three crew members. The seven passengers were women, it said.
An airline official said the plane lost contact with the control tower five minutes before landing in Jomsom, a popular tourist and pilgrimage destination.
The country’s weather office said there had been heavy cloud cover in the Pokhara-Jomson area since morning.
Police official Prem Kumar Dani said a land search and rescue team had been dispatched to the area near Mount Dhaulagiri, the world’s seventh highest peak at 8,167 m (26,795 ft).
Nepal, home to eight of the world’s 14 tallest mountains, including Everest, has hit a record for air crashes. Its weather can change dramatically, and runways are often located in difficult-to-reach mountainous areas.
In early 2018, a US-Bangla Airlines flight from Dhaka to Kathmandu had trouble landing and caught fire, killing 51 of the 71 people on board.
In 1992, all 167 people on board a Pakistan International Airlines plane were killed when it plunged down a hill while trying to land in Kathmandu.
