Nepali rescuers find more than 10 bodies in wreckage of passenger plane

Rescue workers in Nepal have recovered the bodies of 20 people out of the 22 who were on board a small aircraft that crashed in a remote northwestern region, an aviation official in the capital Kathmandu said on Monday.

"Efforts are under way to bring the bodies to Kathmandu,” Teknath Sitaula, a spokesman for the capital's Tribhuvan International Airport told Reuters.

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 on Sunday morning headed for Jomsom, a popular trekking destination.

Helicopters operated by the military and private firms scoured the remote mountainous area all day Sunday, aided by teams on foot, but called off the search when night fell, as bad weather hampered the recovery operation at around 3,800-4,000 meters above sea level.

After the search resumed on Monday, the army shared on social media a photo of aircraft parts and other debris littering a sheer mountainside including a wing with the registration number 9N-AET clearly visible.

Sixteen Nepalis were on board the plane, as well as four Indians and two Germans. There was no word on the cause of the crash.

The Civil Aviation Authority confirmed that the plane "met an accident" at 4,420 meters in the Sanosware area of Thasang rural municipality in Mustang district.

Pokhara Airport spokesman Dev Raj Subedi told AFP the rescuers had followed GPS, mobile and satellite signals to narrow down the location of the missing plane.

According to the Aviation Safety Network website, the aircraft was made by Canada's de Havilland and made its first flight more than 40 years ago in 1979.

Past crashes

Tara Air is a subsidiary of Yeti Airlines, a privately owned domestic carrier that services many remote destinations across Nepal.

It suffered its last fatal accident in 2016 on the same route when a plane with 23 on board crashed into a mountainside in Myagdi district.

Nepal's air industry has boomed in recent years, carrying goods and people between hard-to-reach areas as well as foreign trekkers and climbers.

But it has long been plagued by poor safety due to insufficient training and maintenance.

The European Union has banned all Nepali airlines from its airspace over safety concerns.

The Himalayan country also has some of the world's most remote and tricky runways, flanked by snow-capped peaks with approaches that pose a challenge even for accomplished pilots.

The weather can also change quickly in the mountains, creating treacherous flying conditions.

In March 2018, a US-Bangla Airlines plane crash-landed near Kathmandu's notoriously difficult international airport, skidded into a football field and burst into flames.

Fifty-one people died and 20 escaped the burning wreckage but sustained serious injuries.

That accident was Nepal's deadliest since 1992, when all 167 people aboard a Pakistan International Airlines plane died when it crashed on approach to Kathmandu airport.

Just two months earlier a Thai Airways aircraft had crashed near the same airport, killing 113 people.

(AFP)