Nepal says bodies of all 22 victims of Himalayan mountainside plane crash recovered, voice recorder found
- Two Germans, four Indians and 16 Nepalis were on the De Havilland Canada DHC-6-300 Twin Otter aircraft which crashed 15 minutes after take off on Sunday morning
- Nepali government set up a panel to determine the cause of the crash and suggest preventive measures for the aviation sector
Nepali search and rescue teams on Tuesday recovered the body of the last of 22 people aboard a small plane that crashed in the Himalayas two days earlier and also found the flight’s voice recorder.
“Rescuers have recovered all 22 bodies from the crash site,” Deo Chandra Lal Karna, a spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) told Reuters.
“Nothing except the wreckage is left at the crash site now,” Karna said. “All the bodies and the black box have been recovered.”
Nepali soldiers and rescuers had retrieved 21 bodies from the wreckage, strewn across a steep slope on Monday. They recovered the last body on Tuesday morning, Karna said.
Two Germans, four Indians and 16 Nepalis were on the De Havilland Canada DHC-6-300 Twin Otter aircraft which crashed 15 minutes after taking off from the tourist town of Pokhara, 125km (80 miles) west of Kathmandu, on Sunday morning.
The wreckage was found a day later strewn across a mountainside at around 14,500 feet (4,420 metres).
Modern planes have two such “black boxes” – a flight data recorder and a cockpit voice recorder.