NEW DELHI, May 29: A small passenger plane operated by a private airline in Nepal Tara Air, flying from Pokhara to Jomsom in Mustang district adjoining Tibet, crashed on Sunday with 22 people on board, including four Indians, officials said.
The Tara Air aircraft took off at 9.55 AM from Pokhara, and lost contact with the control tower 15 minutes later, according to an airline spokesperson.
The crashed plane was later found at Kowang village. “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 is moving towards the site from the ground and air route,” Nepal Army spokesperson Narayan Silwal said.
Apart from the four Indian nationals (who are from Mumbai), two Germans and 13 Nepali passengers were on board the Twin Otter 9N-AET plane, a spokesperson at the airlines said. The airline issued the list of passengers which identified four Indians as Ashok Kumar Tripathi, Dhanush Tripathi, Ritika Tripathi, and Vaibhawi Tripathi.
The last contact with the aircraft was made in Lete Pass. The Indian Embassy in Kathmandu said the search and rescue operations were underway and that it is in touch with the families of Indian passengers on board. An emergency hotline number (+977-9851107021) was provided by the embassy for more information on the incident.
“There has been no word officially on the condition of the passengers that include four Indians, possibly on a pilgrimage to the famous Muktinath Temple there… We fear the worst,” a Tara airlines source said. The crew members include a senior instructor pilot, co-pilot and an air hostess, the source added.
The aircraft was scheduled to land at Jomsom Airport in the Western mountainous region at 10:15 am. The aircraft lost contact with the tower from the sky above Ghorepani on the Pokhara-Jomsom air route, aviation sources said.
According to an air traffic controller at Jomsom Airport, they have an unconfirmed report about a loud noise in Ghasa of Jomsom. The Nepal government has deployed two private helicopters from Mustang and Pokhara for the search for missing aircraft. The Nepal Army and police personnel have been dispatched to carry out search through land route, officials added.
Tara Air boasts of having the “widest domestic flights network” in Nepal. “No other airlines in Nepal flies to the remote STOL (short takeoff and landing) sectors as extensively and frequently as we do. We transport essential supplies to the hinterlands, including food grains, medicines, relief materials and operate flights for rescue purposes,” the airline website says.
The airline operates a fleet of seven STOL aircrafts, comprising of five Twin Otter (DHC 6/300) and two Dornier (DO 228) aircrafts. Nepal, home to the world’s highest mountain, does have a record of accidents on its extensive domestic air network, with changeable weather and airstrips in difficult mountain locations. In 2016, a Twin Otter turboprop aircraft operated by Tara Air crashed in the western district of Myagdi, leaving all the 23 people dead. Apart from three crew, 20 passengers, including a Chinese and one a Kuwaiti national, were on board the ill-fated aircraft.
(Manas Dasgupta)