Kathmandu, Jul 11:officials said that a private commercial helicopter with six people aboard including five Mexican nationals that went missing near the Mount Everest area in Nepal on Tuesday has crashed in a hilly terrain in the country’s eastern region.The Manang Air NA-MV chopper abruptly lost contact at an altitude above 12,000 feet at 10:13 am, having left Surke Airport in the Solukhumbu area for Kathmandu at 10:04 am, according to Gyanendra Bhul, Manager at Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA).
The isolated, mountainous Solukhumbu district’s Lamjura location is where the helicopter came to a stop. As a rescue effort is under progress, a top TIA official said that a thorough report is still to emerge.The official reported that the neighbourhood residents had told him that the helicopter had crashed with a loud explosion and that they had seen fire at the disaster site.
The Kathmandu Post newspaper quoted rural municipality deputy chair Nwang Lhakpa as saying, “The locals discovered the crashed helicopter at Chihandanda.”
According to Raju Neupane, operating and safety manager of Manang Air, the helicopter’s last known location was in the Lamjura Pass region at 10:12 am.The neighbourhood has been given access to local police. The senior airport official stated that two helicopters sent earlier to identify the crash site had to return owing to severe weather and that the precise cause of the crash is yet unknown.
The chopper was driven by Chet B Gurung and contained five citizens of Mexico.Five of the six persons who were aboard the helicopter’s bodies were discovered at the crash scene, the news portal MyRepublica reported, citing sources.
The search is ongoing, according to TIA spokesperson Teknath Sitaula, who earlier informed the news outlet that “it has been reported that the helicopter of Manang Air is out of contact, there is no contact with the tower when it reached the Lamjura pass.”
A helicopter carrier called Manang Air was founded in 1997 and is based in Kathmandu. Under the rules of the Nepalese Civil Aviation Authority, it has been using helicopters for commercial air transportation within the country of Nepal.The business offers chartered services and focuses on individualised services like expedition work or helicopter tours.
