Kathmandu, May 29 (PTI) Cell phone signals from the only pilot of a small Nepalese airliner that crashed can provide important clues to infantrymen and rescuers about the imaginable location of the plane with 22 people, plus four Indians, the country’s civil aviation authority said. he said on Sunday.
Nepali airline Tara Air’s Twin Otter 9N-AET turboprop plane took off at 10:15 a. m. Pokhara and lost contact with the tower 15 minutes later, according to an airline spokesman.
The missing aircraft could finally be located after Nepal Telecom discovered the cell phone of the aircraft’s pilot, Captain Prabhakar Ghimire, the Global Positioning System (GPS) network, Nepali media reported.
“Captain Ghimire’s cell phone from the missing plane rang and the Nepal Army helicopter landed in the imaginable domain of the crash after following the phone of Nepal Telecom Captain,” said Prem Nath Thakur, general manager of Tribhuvan International Airport. of the newspaper Mi República.
A Nepal Army helicopter with 10 infantrymen and two civil aviation authority workers landed on a riverbank near Narshang Monastery, the imaginable site of the crash, media reported.
Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority said it had traced the aircraft’s possible location to Khaibang, an emergency location transmitter. However, due to bad weather, search operations were interrupted during the day.
There are four Indian nationals, two Germans and thirteen Nepalese passengers, plus a three-member Nepalese crew, said Sudarshan Bartaula, a spokesman for the airlines.
“Tara Air flight 9NAET which took off from Pokhara at 9:55 a. m. m. with 22 other people on board, plus four Indians, disappeared. The search and rescue operation is ongoing. The embassy is in contact with their families. Our emergency number: 977-9851107021,” tweeted the Indian Embassy in Nepal.
The airline published the passenger list, which knew 4 Indians such as Ashok Kumar Tripathy, his wife Vaibhawi Bandekar, his son Dhanush Tripathy and their daughter Ritika Tripathy.
The plane will land at Jomsom Airport in the mountainous western region at 10:15 a. m.
Lost contact with the tower from the sky over Ghorepani on the Pokhara-Jomsom air route, air assets said.
According to an air traffic controller at Jomsom Airport, they have an unconfirmed report of loud noise in Jomsom’s Ghasa.
The weather in the Pokhara-Jomsom direction is cloudy lately with precipitation, which has affected search operations, according to airline sources.
Earlier, Interior Minister Bal Krishna Khand ordered the government to step up search operations for the missing plane.
The plane followed him for the last time as he turned toward Dhaulagiri Peak, officials said.
Tara Air is the last and largest air service provider in the mountains of Nepal, according to the airline’s website.
His activities in 2009 with the project to help expand the rural areas of Nepal. PTI VM HGW HGW
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