Missing Nepal plane crash site gets “physically located”, says Nepal Army

|HT|

A day after a private plane in Nepal - with 22, including four Indians on board - had gone missing, the crash site has been “physically located”, the Nepal Army said on Monday morning. “Search and rescue troops have physically located the plane crash site. Details will be followed,” the spokesperson said in a tweet. The turboprop Twin Otter 9N-AET plane - with four Indian nationals, two Germans and 13 Nepali passengers besides a three-member Nepali crew - was on its way from the city of Pokhara to Jomsom, a popular tourist town in central Nepal, on Sunday morning at around 9:55 am (local time) when it went missing.

The crash site has been located at Sanosware, Thasang-2, Mustang - the mountainous area.

Four Indian nationals - Ashok Kumar Tripathi, his ex-wife Vaibhavi Tripathi, son Dhanush Tripathi and daughter Ritika Tripathi - were on the plane that met with the accident. The Indian Embassy on Sunday had said that they were in touch with the family members.

The ex-couple had been ordered by the court to go on a family holiday every year after their divorce. “Vaibhavi and her ex-husband Ashok were mandated by a family court to go on a vacation of 10 days with their children every year after their divorce. After we received the information, we went to her residence. Vaibhavi works in a Bandra-based company and looks after her mother, who has not been well for a long time. As she went out on annual holiday with the family, her sister came over to take care of the mother for a while,” said senior police inspector Uttam Sonawane of Thane’s Kapurbawdi police station. "A search team has located the wreckage of the plane and shared a picture. Additional teams are heading there so we can get details," Nepal Army spokesman Narayan Silwal said. The search and rescue ops had to be stopped on Sunday evening due to bad weather conditions.

Air safety concerns have been raised in the past as Nepal saw several tragedies.

(Except for the headline and the pictorial description, this story has not been edited by THE DEN staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)