Nepal steps up search for missing copter

 

KATHMANDU: Rescue teams in Nepal stepped up their search for a helicopter chartered by the World Wildlife Fund with 24 people on board after it went missing during bad weather, officials said on Sunday.   

 

The Russian-built MI-17 helicopter disappeared on Saturday in Taplejung district, a remote mountainous area 300 km east of the capital, Kathmandu, after losing radio contact.   

 

Among those aboard were a senior United States aid official, a Finnish diplomat and a Nepalese minister.   

 

Army and civilian helicopters and ground rescue teams began combing the forested hills.

 

The aircraft was carrying seven foreigners and 17 Nepalese nationals.  

 

“Five helicopters have already started looking for the missing helicopter,” Bimalesh Lal Karna, a search and rescue coordinator, said.

 

“About 90 army and police rescuers as well as villagers are also walking towards the remote area to conduct the ground search.”

 

Karna said the remote location, which is largely inaccessible with no roads or paths, as well as monsoon rains were hampering rescue efforts.   

 

The helicopter, with 20 passengers and four crew, left Ghunsa village at 12 pm but never arrived at its destination in Taplejung town, a 20-minute flight.   

 

The passengers, which included diplomats, conservationists and government officials, attended the handover of a WWF project to the local community and were on they way back.   

 

It was raining heavily in the area where the aircraft disappeared, airport officials involved in the rescue operation said.   

 

Karna said reports suggested the helicopter could have crashed, but there was no confirmation.   

 

“Villagers say they heard a loud noise in a gorge soon after the helicopter had left,” Karna said.

 

“We have no confirmation whether it had crashed. No one has been able to reach the spot yet.”

 

Nepal's forest minister Gopal Rai and his wife, Finland's Charge d'Affaires Pauli Mustonnen and deputy director of the US Agency for International Development in Nepal, Margaret Alexander, were on board.   

 

There were seven WWF staff, including four Nepalese nationals and an Australian, an American and a Canadian. Two of the crew were Russians.   

 

There are more than a dozen private airlines in Nepal, which has poor roads and some of the world's highest peaks.   

 

Eighteen people, including 13 Germans, were killed when a private airliner crashed in the hills of west Nepal in 2002.

 

Persons on board the helicopter:
Gopal Rai, Minister of State of Forests and Soil Conservation
Mrs Gopal Rai
Dr Harka Gurung, Advisor, WWF Nepal
Dr Damodar Parajuli, Acting Secretary – Ministry of State of Forests and Soil Conservation
Narayan Poudel, Director General of Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation
Sharad Rai, Director General of Department of Forests
Pauli Mustonnen, Charge d’Affaires, Embassy of Finland (Finnish)
Margaret Alexander, Dy. Director, USAID (Amercian)
Dr Bijnan Acharya, Program Dev. Specialist, USAID
Dr Jill Bowling, Conservation Director, WWF UK (Australian)
Jennifer Headley, Coordinator, WWF UK (Canadian)
Mingma Norbu Sherpa, Managing Director, EHEC, WWF US
Matthew Preece, Program Officer, WWF US (Amercian)
Dr Chandra Gurung, Country Representative, WWF Nepal
Dr Tirtha Man Maskey, Co-Chair, AsRSG
Yeshi Lama, WWF Nepal
Vijaya Shrestha, Central Committee Member, FNCCI
Hem Raj Bhandari, Nepal Television
Sunil Singh, Nepal Television
Dawa Tshering, Chairperson, KCAMC
Captain Klim Kim (Russian)
Saffron Vallery (Russian)
Mingma Sherpa, Captain
Tandu Shrestha (Crew)