A small passenger plane that had gone missing in the mountainous region of Nepal minutes after taking off from the tourist city of Pokhara was later found at kowang in Mustang district. The plane crashed at the mouth of the Lamche river under the landslide of Manapathi Himal, an official said.
The Twin Otter 9N-AET plane of Nepal's Tara Air was carrying 22 passengers including four Indians.
“According to the information given by the locals to the Nepal Army, the Tara Air plane crashed at the mouth of the Lamche river under the landslide of Manapathi Himal,” Nepal Army spokesperson Narayan Silwal was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
A Nepal Army helicopter carrying 10 soldiers and two employees of the civil aviation authority landed on the bank of a river near the Narshang Monastery, the possible site of the crash.
Interestingly, the airplane was located after Nepal Telecom tracked down the cellphone of the airplane's Captain Prabhakar Ghimire through the Global Positioning System (GPS) network.
According to reports, the plane lost contact 15 minutes after it took off from Pokhara. It is not immediately known if there are any survivors in the crash. Besides the four Indians, there were two Germans and 13 Nepali passengers.
"Tara Air flight 9NAET that took off from Pokhara at 9.55 AM today with 22 people onboard, including 4 Indians, has gone missing. Search and rescue operation is on. The embassy is in touch with their family. Our emergency hotline number:+977-9851107021," the Indian embassy in Nepal tweeted.
The airline issued the list of passengers which identified four Indians as Ashok Kumar Tripathi, Dhanush Tripathi, Ritika Tripathi, and Vaibhawi Tripathi.
The three member crew of the aircraft was led by captain Prabhakar Prasad Ghimire. Utsav Pokhrel is the co-pilot while Kismi Thapa is the air hostess.
The weather condition at Pokhara-Jomsom route is currently cloudy with rainfall, which was affecting the search operations, according to the airline's sources.
