A plane carrying Nepal’s Tara Air carrying 22 people went missing at 9:55 a.m. local time on Sunday, a spokesman for the airline confirmed.
There were 19 passengers and three crew members in the plane, a police spokesman said. The flight was from the city of Pokhara to Jomsom, a popular tourist town in central Nepal. The airline said the plane was carrying four Indians, two Germans and 16 Nepalese people, including three crew members. It says seven passengers are women.
Pokhara is located about 50 miles [80 km] west of Kathmandu, the capital.
The plane lost contact with the control tower five minutes before it landed in Jomsom, a popular tourist destination, said the airline official on condition of anonymity. Tara Air flies heavily to Canada-based Twin Otter turboprop aircraft. Flightradar24 has tracked down the missing plane for the first time in April 1979.
A spokesman added that Nepalese troops had registered to assist in the search for the missing plane.
Officials told Reuters that the inclement weather had prevented plane from flying to the area where the plane was last known. The country’s meteorological office said there had been a dark cloud in the Pokhara-Jomson area since morning. A search helicopter was forced to return to Jomsom due to inclement weather.
“Helicopters are ready to search for Kathmandu, Pokhara and Jomsom when the weather is favorable. Army and police search teams have already left for the area,” the Nepal Civil Aviation Authority said in a statement.
Police chief Prem Kumar Dani said a search and rescue team was deployed near Mount Dhaulagiri, the seventh highest in the world at 26,795 meters (8,167 meters).
Nepal, home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains, including Everest, has a history of air accidents. Its climate may change abruptly, and airports are often located in hard-to-reach mountain areas.
In early 2018, a US-Bangla Airlines flight from Dhaka to Kathmandu crashed into a crash site, killing 51 of the 71 people on board.