Nepal missing plane: Helpline number and the names of 4 Indians passengers revealed

New Delhi, May 29: The Indian Embassy in Nepal released the emergency hotline number after a small plane carrying 22 onboard, including four Indians, went missing in the mountainous region of the Himalayan nation. It took off from the tourist city of Pokhara on Sunday morning, officials said.

The embassy is in touch with the families of the four missing in the Twin Otter 9N-AET plane. "Tara Air flight 9NAET that took off from Pokhara at 9.55 AM today with 22 people onboard, including 4 Indians, has gone missing. Search and rescue operation is on. The embassy is in touch with their family. Our emergency hotline number :+977-9851107021," it tweeted.

The airline has issued the list of passengers which identified four Indians as Ashok Kumar Tripathi, Dhanush Tripathi, Ritika Tripathi, and Vaibhawi Tripathi.

The aircraft was scheduled to land at Jomsom Airport in the Western mountainous region at 10:15 am. The aircraft lost contact with the tower from the sky above Ghorepani on the Pokhara-Jomsom air route, aviation sources said.

According to an air traffic controller at Jomsom Airport, they have an unconfirmed report about loud noise in Ghasa of Jomsom. It is suspected that the aircraft crashed in the Dhaulagiri area, the paper quoted DSP Ram Kumar Dani of Mustang as saying.

A helicopter that flew from Pokhara in search of the missing aircraft has returned without any success due to bad weather. The weather condition at Pokhara-Jomsom route is currently cloudy with rainfall, affecting the search, according to the airline's sources. The Nepal Army and police personnel have been dispatched to carry out search through land route. PTI