The Nepal Civil Aviation Authority said on Twitter that the bodies have been collected and have not yet been identified.
Prem Nath Thakur, the general manager of Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport, told CNN on Monday that bad weather was still a concern, but efforts to locate the remaining passengers would continue for as long as possible.
“Search and rescue teams are at the site crossing the wreckage,” Thakur said. “Once all the passengers have been found, their bodies will be sent to Kathmandu.”
Search operations by the Nepalese Army and Nepal Police resumed on Monday morning after they were stopped on Sunday afternoon due to lack of light and bad weather, which prevented helicopters from flying. in the area of the last known place of the flight.
The site of the wreckage is about 14,500 feet above sea level, an airport spokesman said. Investigators are also looking for a gorge between two mountains, the spokesman added.
The plane had flown from Pokhara on Sunday to the popular tourist town of Jomsom in central Nepal when it lost contact with air traffic control about 12 minutes after the trip, the Aviation Authority said. Civil of Nepal. Flights between the two cities usually last between 20 and 25 minutes.
Authorities believe the incident was caused by bad weather, according to Binod BK, a Nepalese Interior Ministry official.
There were 19 passengers and three crew on board. Two German nationals, four Indians and 13 Nepalese are among the 22 people on the flight, the ministry said. The nationality of two passengers is unknown.
The plane lost contact with the control tower five minutes before landing in Jomsom, an airline official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Tara Air primarily flies Canadian-built Twin Otter turboprop aircraft. The flight tracking website Flightradar24 reported that the missing plane made its first flight in April 1979.
Pokhara is located 129 kilometers (80 miles) west of Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal.
Nepal, home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains, including Everest, has a record number of air crashes. Its weather can change suddenly and the runways are usually located in mountainous areas that are difficult to access.
In 2016, a Tara Air flight crashed while flying the same route as the plane that got lost on Sunday. This incident involved a newly acquired Twin Otter aircraft flying in clear condition. And in early 2018, a Bangla Airlines flight from Dhaka to Kathmandu crashed on land and caught fire, killing 51 of the 71 people on board.