After two harrowing days, the families of the Nepal plane crash victims can now hopefully find some closure.
On Tuesday (31 May), search and rescue teams found the remaining bodies of the 22 people aboard the plane that went missing on Sunday (29 May).
In addition to the bodies, rescuers also managed to retrieve the flight’s voice recorder.
On Tuesday (31 May), Reuters reported that Nepali search-and-rescue teams had found the last of the 22 people who had perished in the ill-fated plane crash.
About 60 people were involved in the rescue mission in the uphill area, including the army, police, mountain guides, and locals, reported GMA News Online.
10 of the bodies were flown to Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, on Monday (30 May). The 12 remaining bodies were transported on 31 May.
Source: Bikash Karki/ AFP
The weather and inaccessibility of the site were apparently factors that slowed down rescue operations.
The 22 passengers comprised four Indians, two Germans, and 16 Nepalis.
GMA News Online reported that the two Germans were in their fifties.
The four Indians on the flight apparently comprised a divorced couple and their young son and daughter. The four of them were taking a holiday together.
Meanwhile, the 16 Nepalis included three crew members, a computer engineer, his wife, and their two daughters.
The other Nepali family had seven members, said NBC News.
The De Havilland Canada DHC-6-300 Twin Otter aircraft had crashed 15 minutes after taking off from Pokhara, located about 125km west of the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu.
The plane was bound for Jomsom, a popular tourist site about 200km west of Kathmandu.
Now that the voice recorder and all 22 bodies have been found, a spokesperson for the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal said there’s “nothing except the wreckage left at the crash site”.
According to flight-tracking website Flightradar24, the plane made its maiden trip in Apr 1979 — the aircraft was 43 years old at the time of the crash.
While the cause of the crash is still unconfirmed, a Pokhara Airport spokesperson said that the aircraft had not caught fire mid-air, reports GMA News Online.
Nepal reportedly has its fair share of air crashes, most recently in 2016, which killed 23 passengers.
While the Nepalese air industry has seen a boom of late, it also has a poor safety record due to a lack of training and maintenance.
Nepal’s erratic weather and challenging runways exacerbate the problem.
Nothing can bring back the lives of those who perished.
However, we hope the families can receive some semblance of closure now that their loved ones’ bodies have been recovered.
More importantly, we hope the authorities look into improving the air safety standards by perhaps using newer planes and investing more resources in training and maintenance.
May the victims rest in peace.
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Featured image adapted from Nisha Bhandari / AFP – Getty Images.
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