PHOTOS: Twin Otter with 22 occupants: all hope is now lost..

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http://www.ekantipur.com/2010/12/15/top ... ng/326571/

Tara Air plane with 22 people aboard missing

DAMBAR SINGH RAI

KHOTANG, DEC 15 - An aircraft owned by Tara air has gone missing after it took off from Lamidanda airport in Khotang district on Wednesday.

The 9N-AFX Twin-Otter plane with 22 people onboard—three crew members, 19 passengers—left the airport for the Capital at 3.10 this afternoon,

Khotang district DSP Tek Bahadur Tamang informed. One of the passengers is a foreigner.

Most of the passengers were returning from a pilgrimage to famous Hindu shrine of Halesimahadev—temple of lord shiva.

Captain AR Shakya, his assistant Satindra Shrestha, and airhostess AS Gurung, were among the crew members.

The missing passengers have been identified.

The aircraft lost contact with the air traffic control tower, five minutes after the take-off. DSP Tamang said efforts are underway to locate the missing plane.

According to TIA officials, a flight from Lamidanda to Kathmandu takes around 35 minutes.

Meanwhile, Nepal Army (NA) spokesperson Ramindra Chhetri though a NA plane is ready to take off for the rescue, it has not left due to unfavourable weather.

“A night-vision aircraft is all ready but it has not taken off owing to low visibility,” said Chhetri.

Famous for its rugged and mountainous terrain, Nepal has dubious safety record when it comes to internal aviation.

Less than two months ago, a chopper bound for Mt. Amadablam crashed at the base camp of the mountain in Solukhumbu district.

And five months ago, an Agni Air Dornier en route to the Everest region from the capital crashed in Makawanpur, killing everyone onboard.

Posted on: 2010-12-15 04:30

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http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/ar ... 17a856.391

Nepal plane crash kills all 22 on board: police
By Claire Cozens (AFP) – 5 hours ago

KATHMANDU — All 22 passengers and crew on board a small passenger plane that crashed in a mountainous area in eastern Nepal were killed, police said Thursday, after a rescue team reached the site.

The Twin Otter plane carrying three crew and 19 passengers including one American smashed into a mountainside shortly after taking off from a small airstrip 140 kilometres (90 miles) east of Kathmandu on Wednesday afternoon.

"We have recovered 20 bodies. We are still searching for the other two, but we can be sure there are no survivors," police spokesman Bigyan Raj Sharma told AFP.

"The aircraft has broken up completely and is scattered over 200 metres (yards) of dense forest."

It is not yet known what caused the Tara Air plane to crash.

Sharma said the bodies of the victims would be flown by helicopter to Kathmandu later Thursday.

The United States embassy in Kathmandu confirmed that one was an American citizen and said it was in contact with the man's family.

The other passengers were initially thought to have been Nepalese, but media reports suggested they may have been Bhutanese pilgrims who claimed to be locals to qualify for a cheaper air fare.

This could not immediately be confirmed, but Sharma said identity documents from Bhutan had been found at the crash site.

Khotang, the remote district in eastern Nepal where the plane took off, is not a major tourist destination, but it is home to two sites of religious significance, a Hindu temple and a Buddhist monastery.

Tara Air is a subsidiary of Yeti Airlines, a privately owned domestic airline founded in 1998 which runs a service to many remote destinations across Nepal.

Yeti's last major accident was in 2008 when a passenger plane crashed on landing at Lukla airport, the gateway to Mount Everest, killing all 19 people on board, most of them German tourists.

[Polecat]

This morning Dutch national TV-news thought a picture of a PC-6 was appropiate to illustrate this sad story with....

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http://avherald.com/h?article=434abc9a&opt=0

It doesn't just look "badly twisted", it actually IS "badly twisted"...

Crash: Tara Air DHC6 near Okhaldhunga on Dec 15th 2010, aircraft impacted mountain

By Simon Hradecky, created Wednesday, Dec 15th 2010 17:41Z, last updated Thursday, Dec 16th 2010 15:49Z

A Tara Air de Havilland DHC-6-300 Twin Otter, registration 9N-AFX performing a charter flight from Lamidanda to Kathmandu (Nepal) with 19 passengers and 3 crew,

lost radio contact with ATC about 5 minutes after departure from Lamidanda (Kothang Disctrict).

In the morning of the following day the wreckage of the aircraft was found at an altitude of approximately 2700 meters/8850 feet
at which the airplane had impacted Palunge Mountain near Shrichaur VDC in the Okhaldhunga district.

No survivors were found, all 22 bodies have been recovered.

The aircraft had departed at approximately 15:08L (09:23Z).

The flight was scheduled to arrive in Kathmandu 35 minutes after departure from Lamidanda located 75nm eastsoutheast of Kathmandu.

The aircraft did not arrive on any airstrip until the night, a search by Nepalese helicopters did not locate the aircraft until the following morning.

Nepalese Authorities suspected the aircraft went down in the Okhaldhunga district.

The search had to be interrupted for the night due to low visibility despite night vision equipment available on the search helicopters.

The Nepalese Army located the crash site at the Tintale village of the Shrichaur VDC in Okhaldhunga.

According to Nepalese Government documents the area developed by Shrichaur Village Development Committee spans from N27°22 to N27°24/E86°23 to E86°26,

the village Tintale however is not listed.

The location of a Palunge peak, hill or mountain is not known, however a mountain peak rises up to 3300 meters/10800 feet at N27°27 E86°27

with its slopes reaching into Shrichaur VDC area still at 2700 meters/8850 feet.

The crash site (Photos: Nepalese Army):