Emergency workers on Thursday identified 14 of the 23 passengers and crew who were killed in Wednesday’s Tara Air plane crash.

The wreckage of Tara Air Twin Otter, which had gone missing minutes after take-off at 7:50am on Wednesday, was found crashed at Solighopte in Dana VDC of Myagdi district, killing all 23 on board, at around 1:30pm.

According to Senior Superintendent of Police Mahendra Pokharel, bodies of Krishna Bhattachan, Binita Bhattachan and Binita’s two-month-old daughter were sent to Jomsom at the request of their relatives. They were residents of Mustang district.

According to police, bodies of Captain Roshan Manandhar, Co-pilot Dikesh Nemkul, Air Hostess Roma Raut, Rewati Prasad Baral, Kamala Thakali and her six-month-old son, Balkrishna Niure, Raj Kumar Tamang, Dolma Tshiring Sherpa, Moti Bahadur KC and Kuwaiti national Ralrashed Ahamad were also identified on Thursday.

SSP Pokharel said bodies of Captain Manandhar, Co-pilot Nemkul, Air hostess Raut and Sherpa were sent to Kathmandu on Thursday itself.  

Post-mortem of identified bodies were carried out at the Western Regional Hospital in Pokhara. The kin of Niure received the body after the post-mortem.

“We will send nine bodies whose identities are yet to be ascertained to Kathmandu on Friday for DNA test,” said SSP Pokharel.

The bodies of all the victims were airlifted to Pokhara on an Air Dynasty helicopter.

The site where the Jomsom-bound plane crashed minutes after taking off from Pokhara is around 13,000 feet high in the Himalayas and can only be reached on foot or by helicopter.

Two helicopters had managed to land near the crash site on Thursday afternoon.

The choppers could not land in the morning due to strong wind.

Around 200 personnel from the Nepal Army, Nepal Police and the Armed Police Force had reached the site.

Black box recovered

The black box of the crashed Tara Air plane was recovered on Thursday, according to the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (Caan). Director General Sanjiv Gautam said the device would be handed over to the five-member investigation team formed on Wednesday by the government to look into crash.