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Nepal plane wreck carrying 22 passengers found

Rescuers in Nepal have found the crash site of a plane that went missing on Sunday with 22 people on board, BBC reports.

The wreckage of the plane, operated by Nepali carrier Tara Air, was recovered in the district of Mustang in northern Nepal, said a Nepal Army spokesman.

The passenger plane was on a 20-minute flight when it lost contact with air traffic control five minutes before it was due to land.

It is still not known if there are any survivors from the crash.

Four Indians, two Germans and 16 Nepalis were on board the plane, according to reports. But search operations were hampered by bad weather and mountainous terrain, and only resumed on Monday morning.

Images posted on Twitter by a spokesman from the Nepalese Army showed the remains of the plane – prominently bearing its registered call sign 9N-AET.

“Search and rescue troops have physically located the plane crash site,” Narayan Silwal said on Twitter.

The plane had departed the tourist town of Pokhara at around 0955 local time on Sunday (04:10 GMT). It was bound for Jomsom – a popular tourist and pilgrimage site.

Nepal has had a fraught record of aviation accidents, often due to its sudden weather changes and airstrips located in rocky terrains that are difficult to access.

In early 2018, a US-Bangla flight carrying 71 people from Dhaka in Bangladesh caught fire as it landed in Kathmandu, killing 51 people.

More recently, three people died in a plane crash in April 2019 when the aircraft veered off the runway and hit a stationary helicopter at Lukla Airport – considered one of the most tricky runways to navigate.

Dozens died when a plane carrying 71 people crashed near Kathmandu airport in Nepal in 2018.ã

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