Dharamsala, December 16 – A Tibetan man holding an American passport was among 22 people feared dead after the airplane in which they were traveling crashed in Nepal’s rugged east, airport officials told reporters a day after the plane went missing. No further details of the person was available.
The Canadian-built Twin Otter aircraft took off Wednesday from Khotang, a district in eastern Nepal which is not a major tourist destination but home to a Hindu temple and a Buddhist monastery.
Airport official Dinesh Shrestha said three rescue aircraft including an army helicopter scoured the area Wednesday evening and early Thursday and located the crash site.
The three crew members and 18 passengers were Nepali nationals.
Tara Air is a subsidiary of Yeti Airlines, a privately owned domestic airline founded in 1998 which runs a service to many far-flung destinations across Nepal.
Yeti’s last major accident was in 2008 when a passenger plane crashed on landing at Lukla airport, the gateway to Mount Everest, killing all 19 people on board, most of them German tourists.
