Nepal plane crash: Officials recover black box from wreckage
The black box of a Tara Air plane that crashed in Nepal on Sunday has been recovered, civil aviation authorities have confirmed to the BBC. Search teams first located the crash site on Monday. The remains of all 22 people onboard have been found since. The plane was on a 20-minute flight when it lost contact with air traffic control five minutes before it was due to land. Four Indians, two Germans and 16 Nepali passengers were on board the plane. “[The] cockpit voice recorder, also known as [the] black box of the plane has been recovered from the crash site,” Deo Chandra Lal Karna, spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority Nepal (CAAN) told BBC Nepali. “We are preparing to airlift the black box to Kathmandu from a helicopter.” Local rescuer Indra Singh Sherchan said mountain guides and security officials had “cut out” the black box from the wreckage of the plane that was “stuck on the mountain cliff”. The plane – which was made by Canadian aircraft firm de Havilland – had departed the tourist town of Pokhara at around 0955 local time on Sunday (04:10 GMT). It was bound for Jomsom – a popular tourist and pilgrimage site. The news sparked a frantic search for the plane and its passengers, which was frustrated by bad weather and mountainous terrain.(BBC)…[+]