The Nepal Weekly 
May 31, 2022
The Tara Air Twin-Otter plane crashed in Thasung Rurral Municipality of Mustang district on Sunday due to bad weather, according to a preliminary investigation carried out by the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN).
CAAN director-general Pradeep Adhikari informed the meeting of the International Committee of the Parliament on Monday that the private airlines aircraft met with an accident because of the inclement weather.
He said a preliminary investigation showed that the aircraft which should have made a right turn instead took a left turn due to the bad weather and crashed into a hillside.
The crash site is at a distance of eight nautical miles from the Jomsom Airport. The wreckage of the aeroplane was found Monday morning at the Sanusare cliff at Thasang rural municipality-2 of Mustang district.
The plane that had taken off from Pokhara Airport at 9.55 am on Sunday lost contact with the tower at 10.7 am. It was flying towards Jomsom of Mustang from Pokhara..
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation formed a five member probe committee headed by senior Aeronautical engineer Ratish Chandra Lal, to investigate into the incident.
The small aircraft crashed Monday morning at the Thasung rural municipality on board 22 people including four Indian nationals. Five helicopters were mobilized for searching for the plane the whole day on Sunday soon after it was reported missing. But bad weather hampered the search. The wreckage of the plane was found by the search and rescue team only on Monday morning.
So far 20 dead bodies have been collected by the search and rescue team. Ten bodies have been brought to Kathmandu till Monday afternoon and kept at TU Teaching Hospital, Maharajgunj, according to Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN). Ten dead bodies are brought to Pokhara and are expected to be taken to Kathmandu in the evening
One dead body is seen by the search and rescue team but due to rain and difficult terrain could not be rescued. One person is still missing in the accident site.
No identification of the dead bodies have been made so far. Family members from India are awaited in Kathmandu for identification. Twenty one people are confirmed dead and one still missing in the incident, said CAAN spokesperson Karna.
Postmortem of the bodies will be conducted at Teaching Hospital after all dead bodies are brought there.
