On a Monday in late May, a small Tara Air Twin Otter that had lifted off from the lakeside town of Pokhara vanished from the sky above the deep gorges of western Nepal, carrying people bound for the mountain village of Jomsom. Rescuers, many of them local villagers who had stumbled upon the wreckage while searching for a prized fungus, reached the scattered remains and recovered 21 of the 22 people aboard. One life remains unaccounted for, and the families who waited through a long Sunday at the airport are left to hold their grief in the uneasy space between hope and loss.
Rescuers Recover 21 Bodies From Nepal Plane Crash Site; Search Continues for One Missing
Twenty-two people aboard died in the crash, 21 bodies have been recovered, and relatives waited at the airport for news of loved ones.
Rescuers, working with their bare hands, struggled to shift the heavy metal debris.
Mark
Twenty-one of twenty-two recovered. Why did it take a full day to reach the site?
Mimi
The plane went down in a gorge with steep, rough ground. Villagers only reached it Monday morning, and even then some bodies were pinned under metal that rescuers were moving by hand.
Mark
And the villagers found it, not a search team?
Mimi
According to local reports, yes. They were out looking for Yarsagumba and followed the smell of fuel.
Luke
Worth noting that comes from local news reports and one villager, Bishal Magar, quoted by Setopati. It's not an official finding.
Mark
He also described how the plane hit the mountains.
Mimi
He said it seemed to clip a smaller peak and then strike a bigger one. That's what he thought he saw.
Luke
Right, that's an impression, not a cause. Nothing in the reporting says why the plane went down.
Mark
What do we actually know about the timeline?
Mimi
Flightradar24 data shows takeoff at 9:55 a.m. and a last signal at 10:07 at 12,825 feet. The flight should have lasted about 20 minutes.
Luke
That's tracking data from one outside source. And the one missing person is still unaccounted for, so the final toll isn't confirmed.
Mark
Does the plane's age matter?
Mimi
The article notes the Twin Otter has served in Nepal for about 50 years with around 21 accidents. This specific aircraft was 43 years old.
Luke
Those accident figures come from aviationnepal.com, and the piece doesn't say the age caused anything. It's context, not a conclusion.
Il Polso
- The aircraft dropped out of contact roughly twelve minutes after takeoff, swallowed by terrain of river gorges and high peaks.
- Rescuers worked slowly with bare hands, lifting heavy metal debris from bodies pinned across rocks and moss on the slope.
- Families waiting at Kathmandu's airport endured hours of uncertainty before the first confirmations of loss came through.
- Diplomatic channels stirred as German authorities in Hesse moved to support relatives of the two German passengers.
- With 21 bodies recovered and one person still missing, the search continues while questions about the aging Twin Otter fleet begin to surface.
On a Monday in late May, a small Tara Air Twin Otter that had lifted off from the lakeside town of Pokhara vanished from the sky above the deep gorges of western Nepal, carrying people bound for the mountain village of Jomsom. Rescuers, many of them local villagers who had stumbled upon the wreckage while searching for a prized fungus, reached the scattered remains and recovered 21 of the 22 people aboard. One life remains unaccounted for, and the families who waited through a long Sunday at the airport are left to hold their grief in the uneasy space between hope and loss.
On Monday, a day after a small passenger plane vanished from radar over the mountains of western Nepal, rescuers reached the wreckage on the side of a gorge and began bringing out the dead. By nightfall they had recovered 21 of the 22 people aboard, and the search for the last person was still underway.
The aircraft was a Tara Air Twin Otter on a short scheduled hop from Pokhara to Jomsom, a flight that normally takes about twenty minutes. Its last signal came about twelve minutes after departure, at high altitude over a landscape of deep gorges. The passengers included four Indians, two Germans from Hesse, and Nepali families, among them a group of four and a group of seven.
Relatives spent most of Sunday at the airport, waiting for word. It was villagers searching for Yarsagumba, the caterpillar fungus prized in the region, who finally found the site, guided by the smell of fuel. One of them said it seemed the plane had clipped a smaller peak before striking a larger one.
The Twin Otter has flown Nepal's skies for about fifty years, a rugged design built for short runways. Its record there now carries the weight of many incidents, and the crash may bring fresh attention to the aging fleet. For now, the work is recovery, identification, and the slow return of the dead to the families who have been waiting for them.
On Monday, a day after a small passenger plane vanished from radar over the mountains of western Nepal, rescuers reached the wreckage on the side of a gorge and began bringing out the dead. By the end of the day they had recovered 21 of the 22 people who had been aboard. The search for the last person was still under way, Kathmandu airport spokesman Tek Nath Sitaula said.
Aerial photographs showed pieces of the aircraft strewn across rocks and moss on the slope. The work was slow. Some of the bodies were pinned beneath the wreckage, and rescuers, working with their bare hands, struggled to shift the heavy metal debris.
The aircraft was a Tara Air Twin Otter, a turboprop on a scheduled flight from the resort town of Pokhara, 125 miles west of Kathmandu, to Jomsom, a mountain town in Mustang district. The trip normally takes about 20 minutes. According to tracking data from flightradar24.com, the 43-year-old plane left Pokhara at 9:55 a.m. and sent its last signal at 10:07 a.m., at an altitude of 12,825 feet. It then lost contact with the control tower in terrain of deep river gorges and high peaks. The army said it came down in Sanosware, close to Jomsom.
Tara Air said four Indians and two Germans were on board. The three crew members and the remaining passengers were Nepali. The German news agency dpa reported that the Germans were a man and a woman from the western state of Hesse. A spokesperson for the Hesse state interior ministry told dpa that officials had to assume the two were no longer alive, and that state police had already informed relatives and begun providing support. Local news reports said the passengers included two Nepali families, one of four people and one of seven.
Relatives spent most of Sunday at the airport waiting for word of their loved ones.
It was villagers, not an official team, who found the site. According to local news reports, they had been searching the area for Yarsagumba, a fungus sometimes called Himalayan Viagra. The Setopati news website quoted one of them, Bishal Magar, who said they heard about the missing plane on Sunday but could only reach the spot on Monday morning, after following the smell of fuel. He said it appeared the plane may have clipped the top of a smaller mountain before striking a larger one.
Jomsom is a popular base for foreign hikers who use the surrounding mountain trails, and for Indian and Nepalese pilgrims visiting the revered Muktinath temple.
The Twin Otter was originally built by the Canadian manufacturer De Havilland. It has flown in Nepal for about 50 years and, according to aviationnepal.com, has been involved in about 21 accidents there. The design, with its top-mounted wing and fixed landing gear, is prized for its durability and its ability to take off and land on short runways. Production ended in the 1980s, and another Canadian company, Viking Air, revived the model in 2010.
What remains is the search for the one person still unaccounted for, and the work of identifying and returning the dead to their families.
Citazioni salienti
Officials said the search is continuing for the remaining person.— Tek Nath Sitaula, Kathmandu airport spokesman
We have to assume at this point that the two people are no longer alive.— Spokesperson for the Hesse state interior ministry, quoted by dpa
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