Asia

Asia

22 found dead at site of Nepal plane crash

16 December 2010 18:52 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The bodies of all 22 people killed in the crash of a Nepali commercial airplane were airlifted to the capital Thursday and sent to postmortem, officials said, APA reports quoting allheadlinenews.com website.
The 19 Bhutanese passengers and three crew members were aboard the Tara Air craft when it disappeared Wednesday shortly after takeoff from the Lamidada Airport. The 19th passenger, a man named Kelsang Choedak, was said to be a Tibetan carrying an American passport.
The bodies were airlifted from the crash site to the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA).
The cause of the accident is still unknown.
This is the second plane crash within the past year. In August, an Agni Air plane carrying mostly foreign tourists crashed near Kathmandu, killing all 14 people on board. They were returning from a religious visit to the Halesi Mahadev in Khotang district. All of them were Buddhists.
According to Bhutanese website kunselonline.com, Prime Minster Jigmi Y. Thinley announced at a press conference that all bodies from the plane crash had been recovered.
Arrangements have been made to keep the bodies in a house near the airport. "Doctors have also been called to make sure that the bodies are placed well in coffins. Bhutanese monks have also been asked to perform the rites," according to the website.
The Bhutan government had dispatched a nine-member team headed by its Cabinet Secretary. â€œWe have already ordered for an inquiry,â€ Nepalâ€™s tourism minister, Shrat Singh Bhandari told the website.
A local travel agency had listed all the passengers as Nepali nationals. Foreigners who want to charter a flight have to pay in dollars, which is expensive.