A small airplane with 22 people on board flying on a popular tourist route was missing in Nepal's mountains on Sunday, the Associated Press quoted an official as saying. The Nepal-based Tara Airlines plane, which was on a 15-minute scheduled flight to the mountain town of Jomsom, took off from the resort town of Pokhara, 200 kilometers (125 miles) east of Kathmandu. It lost contact with the airport tower shortly after takeoff. Police official Ramesh Thapa said there was no information on the Twin Otter aircraft and a search was under way. The missing aircraft had four Indian and three Japanese nationals on board. The remaining were Nepali citizens and the aircraft had 22 passengers, including the crew, reported state media. The Twin Otter 9N-AET plane belonging to Tara Air, which took off at 10:15 a.m. from Pokhara, lost contact with the tower 15 minutes after it flew, according to a spokesperson at the Tara Air. According to an air traffic controller at Jomsom Airport, they have an unconfirmed report about a loud noise in Ghasa off Jomsom. It is suspected that the aircraft crashed in the Dhaulagiri area, My Republica newspaper quoted DSP Ram Kumar Dani of Mustang as saying. Dani said that a helicopter had flown from Jomsom to search for the aircraft. The aircraft was seen over the sky of Jomsom in Mustang district and then had diverted to Mount Dhaulagiri after which it hadn't come into contact, Chief District Officer Netra Prasad Sharma told ANI news agency. The Home Ministry has deployed two private helicopters from Mustang and Pokhara to assist in the search of missing aircraft. A Nepal Army chopper was also deployed for the search. A Nepali Army Mi-17 helicopter left for Lete, Mustang, which is the suspected region of crash of the missing Tara Air flight, said Narayan Silwal, spokesperson for Nepali Army. — Agencies
