KATHMANDU, Nepal — Rescue workers recovered 22 bodies on Monday and Tuesday after a nearly 48-hour operation to reach and assess the site of a plane crash in the rocky heights of the Himalayas, according to officials in Nepal.
The Canadian-made De Havilland DHC-6 Twin Otter, operated by Tara Air and carrying 19 passengers and three crew members, took off on Sunday morning from the central Nepali city of Pokhara and was headed for Jomsom, a tourist destination popular with trekkers.
The flight normally takes about 30 minutes, but the plane went down in bad weather with 13 Nepalis, four Hindu pilgrims from India and two German trekkers on board.
On Tuesday morning, Narayan Silwal, a Nepali Army general and spokesman, said on Twitter that all 22 bodies had been recovered. Mr. Silwal added that the authorities were arranging transportation to Kathmandu, the capital, for 12 bodies that were still at the crash site. Ten bodies were airlifted to Kathmandu on Monday evening.
Early on Monday, rainfall and fog made it difficult for rescuers to reach the site. Helicopters deployed on Sunday by the Nepali Army and private companies were diverted to Kathmandu and Pokhara because of low visibility.
After conditions improved on Monday morning, a helicopter carrying a senior army official, a police inspector and a guide reached the location, at an elevation of 14,500 feet near the village of Thasang. A total of 15 rescuers had reached the spot by noon, the authorities said.
“No one is alive,” said Narendra Shahi, an international mountain guide, who was sent to the crash site as part of the rescue operation. “The plane has crashed into pieces. It’s so heartbreaking.”
One of the bodies recovered on Monday was that of Utsav Pokharel, a 25-year-old junior pilot on the flight. “He always wanted to be a pilot,” said his father, Maniram Pokharel, as he burst into tears. “He left us too early.”
Mr. Pokharel was the first person from his remote village in the Rukum District to become a pilot, family members said, after he learned to fly in the Philippines.
The family was so proud of him that they also enrolled Mr. Pokharel’s younger brother, Umesh, in a pilot training program in the Philippines.
“He has just three months left to complete his course,” said Mr. Pokharel, their father. “I am confused whether to ask him to be a pilot or ask him to leave.”
Nepali officials on Monday said the cause of the crash was not immediately clear. The most likely possibility, they said, was that the plane crashed into a mountain after it lost contact with air traffic controllers while navigating in particularly bad weather.
“Initially, the weather was good,” said Puskal Sharma, the chief of the Jomsom airport, but it quickly “worsened just when we were asking the Tara Air plane for the final position. Then, we lost the connection immediately.”
Mr. Sharma said two small planes had successfully landed at the Jomsom airport early Sunday morning.
Jomsom is a favorite of trekkers because of its breathtaking snow-capped mountains. Hindu pilgrims from India, Nepal and other countries also visit the area to pray at the Muktinath Temple. For many, a trip there is thought to offer a pathway to heaven. Among the most famous visitors was Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, who toured the temple in 2018.
To reach remote mountainous places like Jomsom, residents and visitors rely on small twin-engine planes. The route from Pokhara to Jomsom is considered one of the riskiest in Nepal because planes have to fly through narrow valleys, where visibility is often a challenge. Crashes are more common than usual because of frequent bad weather, rocky terrain and aging plane fleets.
In 2016, 23 people were killed when a Tara Air plane went down on the same route as the one on Sunday. In 2018, a passenger plane from Bangladesh crashed in Kathmandu, killing 49 of the 71 people on board. In response to the poor safety record of Nepali airlines, the European Union has barred the planes from its airspace.
The Nepali crew members on the Tara Air flight that crashed Sunday were Captain Prabhakar Prasad Ghimire, Mr. Pokharel and Kishmi Thapa, a flight attendant, Tara Air said.
At least seven of the Nepali passengers were from the same family, making a pilgrimage to Muktinath Temple, according to Nepali media reports. The four pilgrims from India were a family from the western state of Maharashtra, according to Indian media reports.
Bhadra Sharma reported from Kathmandu, and Karan Deep Singh from New Delhi.
