Fate of 22 passengers unclear as rescuers locate plane's burnt-out wreckage

The fate of four members of an Indian family and 18 others on board a small plane of a Nepalese airlines remained unclear after the aircraft crashed on Sunday in the mountainous region of the Himalayan nation minutes after taking off from the tourist city of Pokhara officials saidThe Twin Otter 9NAET plane belonging to Tara Air took off at 1015 am from Pokhara and lost contact with the control tower 15 minutes later according to an airline spokespersonNepali Army Major General Baburam Shrestha in the evening said that the plane was spotted in a state of burning at Laningchgola an upper area of Larikota in Thasang Rural Municipality2 in Mustang district The Rising Nepal newspaper reportedThe fate of the crew and passengers were immediately not knownThere are four Indian nationals two Germans and 13 Nepali passengers besides a three member Nepali crew said Sudarshan Bartaula a spokesperson at the airlinesThe airline issued the list of passengers which identified four Indians as Ashok Kumar Tripathy his wife Vaibhavi Bandekar Tripathi and their children Dhanush and Ritika The family is currently residing in Thane city near MumbaiTara Air flight 9NAET that took off from Pokhara at 955 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 9779851107021 the Indian embassy in Nepal tweetedThe three member crew of the aircraft was led by captain Prabhakar Prasad Ghimire Utsav Pokhrel is the copilot while Kismi Thapa is the air hostess My Republica newspaper reported quoting Pokhara Airport Information Officer Dev Raj AdhikariThe aircraft was scheduled to land at Jomsom Airport in the Western mountainous region at 1015 amThe aircraft lost contact with the tower from the sky above Ghorepani on the PokharaJomsom air route aviation sources saidAccording to an air traffic controller at Jomsom Airport they have an unconfirmed report about a loud noise in Ghasa of Jomsom It was suspected that the aircraft crashed in the Dhaulagiri areaA 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 Prem Nath Thakur general manager of the Tribhuvan International Airport was quoted as saying by the newspaperInterestingly the airplane was located after Nepal Telecom tracked down the cellphone of the airplanes pilot Captain Prabhakar Ghimire through the Global Positioning System GPS networkThe cell phone of Captain Ghimire of the missing aircraft has been ringing and Nepal Armys helicopter has landed in the possible accident area after tracking the captains phone from Nepal Telecom Thakur saidWe have also sent Nepal Army and Nepal Police personnel on foot for the search he addedChief District Officer of Myagdi Chiranjibi Rana earlier told The Kathmandu Post newspaper that bad weather hampered the search efforts at the site where the plane was last spotted by the localsAccording to him locals reported that the plane made two circles at Khaibang and headed to Kiti Danda near Lete Pass 2500mA team of police has been mobilised at the site The site is a 12hour walk from Lete he said There are no human settlements in the area where locals last spotted the planeAs soon as the weather improves the helicopter will begin aerial operations said RanaA helicopter that flew from Pokhara in search of the missing aircraft earlier in the day returned without any success due to bad weatherHome Minister Bal Krishna Khand has directed authorities to intensify the search operations for the missing aircraftMustang Chief District Officer Netra Prasad Sharma said that following the instruction from the home minister security officials of five districts adjoining the Dhaulagiri Peak have been urged to stay alertThe aircraft was last tracked taking a turn toward the Dhaulagiri Peak officials saidAn MI17 helicopter of the Nepal Army has also been dispatched from Kathmandu to Lete to help in the search operationThe family members of the missing crew and passengers have gathered at the Pokhara AirportIn 2016 all 23 people aboard were killed when a plane of the same airline flying the same route crashed after takeoffTara Air is the newest and biggest airline service provider in the Nepalese mountains according to the airline website It started business in 2009 with the mission of helping develop rural NepalThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever