Nepal plane crash: Wreckage of plane that included Thane family found in Mustang, all suspected dead

Kathmandu: Following a plane crash on Sunday with 22 people including four Indians, the Nepal Army confirmed on Monday that wreckage has been located in the Sonasware of Mustang District.

A Nepal Army spokesperson said that the army twin engine Tara Air passenger plane had crashed in Sanosware, Thasang-2 in Mustang.

A rescue team led by Nepal Police inspector Raj Kumar Tamang reached the crash site by air.

“Some of the bodies of the passengers are beyond recognition. Police gathering the remains” the official told ANI.

At least 16 bodies have been recovered so far from the incident site at Mustang District where a passenger plane crashed on Sunday.

The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal confirmed that the Nepal Army has retrieved the bodies from the wreckage of the aircraft but is yet to identify them. The recovered bodies will be flown to Kathmandu for postmortem, officials said.

"We suspected all the passengers on board the aircraft have lost their lives. Our preliminary assessment shows that no one could have survived the plane crash, but the official statement is due," Phadindra Mani Pokhrel, Spokesperson, Home Ministry was quoted as saying by the news agency ANI.

Among the passengers were four Indians, a family consisting separated parents and two children - Dhanush (24) and Ritika (15) who lived with their mother Vaibhavi Bandekar (51) and their maternal grandparents in Thane. The father, Ashok Kumar Tripathy (53) worked at a private firm in Mumbai.

“I met this Indian family when they came to Kathmandu on May 27. They were very excited and we had dinner together. Later, they went to Pashupatinath temple and attended the aarti. On May 28, they travelled from Kathmandu to Pokhara by road. On Sunday, their flight was to depart at 6 am from Pokhara to Jomsom but the takeoff got delayed due to bad weather,” said Sagar Acharya, their tour manager from Kailash Vision Trek, to The Indian Express.