Hopes of finding survivors among the 22 people aboard a small plane that crashed into a Himalayan mountainside on Sunday are waning in Nepal on Monday, officials said, with just two people. yet to be found.
Two Germans, four Indians and 16 Nepalese were aboard the aircraft, which crashed 15 minutes after taking off from the resort town of Pokhara, 125 km west of the capital Kathmandu, on Sunday morning.
“There is very little chance that we will find survivors,” said Deo Chandra Lal Karna, a spokesperson for the Nepal Civil Aviation Authority.
Nepalese soldiers and rescue workers recovered 20 bodies from the wreckage, scattered along a steep slope at an altitude of about 14,500 feet.
Difficult terrain and bad weather made search teams difficult.
“There is a very thick cloud in the area,” Netra Prasad Sharma, the most senior bureaucrat in the Mustang district where the accident took place, told Reuters by telephone. “The search for bodies is happening.”
In Kathmandu, relatives of the victims were waiting for the bodies to be brought back from the crash site, and the aviation authority said in a tweet that formal identification of the victims had not yet taken place.
“I am waiting for my son’s body,” Maniram Pokhrel told Reuters, his voice breaking. His son Utsav Pokhrel, 25, was the co-pilot.
Operated by privately owned Tara Air, the aircraft crashed in overcast weather Sunday morning and the wreckage was not seen until Monday morning by the Nepalese army.
The destination was Jomsom, a popular tourist and pilgrimage site about 80 km (50 miles) northwest of Pokhara – usually a 20-minute flight.
The aircraft lost contact with the Pokhara control tower five minutes before landing, airline officials said.
The accident site is close to Nepal’s border with China, in the region where Mount Dhaulagiri, the seventh highest peak in the world, at 8,167 meters, is located.
Flight tracking website Flightradar24 said the aircraft, with registration number 9N-AET, made its first flight 43 years ago.
Air crashes are not uncommon in Nepal, home to eight of the 14 highest mountains in the world, including Everest, as the weather can change suddenly, making mountain airstrips dangerous.
In early 2018, a US-Bangla Airlines flight from Dhaka to Kathmandu crashed on landing and caught fire, killing 51 of the 71 people on board.
Source: CNN Brasil
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