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A plane carrying 22 passengers was found crashed on a mountain in central Nepal
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A plane that went missing in Nepal carrying 22 passengers has crashed and was found Monday, the country's military announced.
The Twin Otter aircraft, operated by Tara Air, took off Sunday at 9:55 a.m. local time, en route to Jomsom, a city in the Mustang district in central Nepal, from Pokhara, a city about 100 miles south of Jomsom.
The aircraft had last made contact with the Jomsom Airport at 10:07 that morning.
The plane was carrying three crew members and 19 passengers; 13 of them were Nepali, four were Indian and two were German, according to Tara Air.
The plane crashed at an altitude of 14,500 feet, according to the Nepal Civil Aviation Authority. It was found the next day in the Mustang district at approximately 7:10 a.m. local time, according to the Nepali army.
By Monday afternoon, authorities said they had recovered 14 bodies, according to The Associated Press.
Photos of the crash, released by the army, show the plane's parts scattered across a mountainside.
The army sent troops and helicopters to search an area of Mustang where locals had reported something burning, but the attempt was impaired by poor visibility and bad weather conditions.
"Once our troops reach the location then only we can verify the findings officially and independently," an army spokesperson tweeted. "Our rescue effort from ground and air is relentless..."
The search and rescue operation had temporarily stopped Sunday, the spokesperson tweeted at about 5:30 p.m. that day, but resumed Monday morning.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
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