Navesh Chitrakar/Portal
At the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital in Kathmandu, people carry the body of a person who died in a helicopter crash near Mount Everest on Tuesday, July 11, 2023.
CNN –
Six people have died in a helicopter crash in Nepal, a spokesman for Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu said on Tuesday.
The Manang Air helicopter was carrying five Mexican passengers and a Nepalese pilot, Teknath Sitoula told CNN.
Portal reported that Manang Air is serving tourists who want views of Nepal’s peaks, including Mount Everest, the world’s tallest mountain.
Check out this interactive content on CNN.com
It took off from Solukhumbu district, where Everest is located, towards the capital Kathmandu at 10:05 a.m. local time (00:20 a.m. ET) on Tuesday, according to a statement from the Nepal Civil Aviation Authority.
According to the agency, the helicopter lost contact less than ten minutes later at 10:13 am and was later found crashed in the rural community of Likhupike in Solukhumbu.
It added that locals and police who reached the crash site found the bodies of everyone on board.
“All six bodies were found. We are now starting to bring them to Kathmandu. “It will take some time because we have to drive from the crash site by road and then fly to Kathmandu,” Sitoula told CNN.
He added that the cause of the crash has not yet been clarified.
The poor weather, poor visibility and mountainous topography of Nepal contribute to Nepal being notoriously dangerous for aviation.
In January, at least 68 people were killed when a plane crashed near the city of Pokhara in central Nepal. This was the Himalayan nation’s deadliest plane crash in more than 30 years.