Missing Nepal helicopter with Mexican tourists onboard crashes, 5 die

The Manang Air helicopter with five Mexican passengers and a captain that lost contact on Tuesday morning has crashed. Bodies of five people have been received while one other person on the aircraft was still missing. The chopper with registration number 9N-AMV crashed at Lamjura of Likhupike Rural Municipality in Solukhumbu district. “The helicopter crashed in the Lamajura area and rescuers had recovered the bodies of five people and were searching for the sixth,” Associated Press quoted Basanta Bhattarai, the chief government administrator in the area, as saying. “The helicopter has been found at the border of Likhu PK village council and Dudhkunda Municipality-2 commonly called Lamajura Danda. The villagers have retrieved the five bodies,” ANI quoted Koshi Province Police DIG Rajeshnath Bastola as saying. As per the police, the helicopter seems to have hit a tree on the hilltop. Local residents reported that the helicopter crashed with a loud explosion, and they witnessed a fire at the crash site, PTI quoted an official as saying. On Tuesday morning, the helicopter was returning to Kathmandu, bringing the five Mexican tourists from sightseeing trip to the world’s highest peak Mount Everest. The last location of the chopper was tracked around 10:12 am in the Lamjura Pass area, operation and safety manager of Manang Air, Raju Neupane, was quoted as saying by the Kathmandu Post. With inputs from agencies