Nepal Crash: Last Body Recovered; Kin Of Odisha HR Consultant, Wife Called To Kathmandu

Kathmandu: Family members of Ashok Kumar Tripathy (53), an HR consultant from Odisha who died along with his wife Vaibhavi Bandekar Tripathy, son Dhanush and daughter Ritika in the Nepal air crash, will leave for Kathmandu on Tuesday morning.

The Indian Embassy in Nepal contacted Ashok’s twin brother Rajen Tripathy, a software engineer in Pune, and requested him to reach Kathmandu.

“My younger brother Rajen and son Anshuk along with some family members of Vaibhavi will leave from Mumbai for Nepal on Tuesday morning. The Indian Embassy has not shared much details but we suspect the recovered bodies are unrecognisable,” Ashok’s elder brother Satyabrata Tripathy, who lives in Odisha’s Sonepur town, told TNIE.

Nepal Army on Tuesday said it has recovered the last body from the wreckage site of the Tara Air crash in the mountainous Mustang district. There were 22 people onboard, including Ashok, Vaibhavi and their children.

By Monday night, rescuers had recovered 21 bodies, a statement issued by the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) said, the PTI reported.

Ten bodies were brought to Kathmandu, while 11 bodies were taken to the base camp from where the rescue operation is being coordinated, the CAAN said on Monday.

“The last dead body has been recovered. Arranging to bring the remaining 12 dead bodies from the crash site to Kathmandu,” Nepal Army Spokesperson Brigadier General Narayan Silwal tweeted.

The Canadian-built turboprop Twin Otter (9N-AET) went missing on Sunday morning soon after taking off from Pokhara on a short flight to Jomsom. Besides Ashok and his family, there were two Germans, 13 Nepali nationals and three crew members onboard the flight.

Ashok and Vaibhavi (51) had separated. Vaibhavi and the children lived in Thane near Mumbai, where she worked at a private firm. Ashok, who was from Sonepur in Odisha, had moved back to his home state, where he ran a HR consultancy firm in Bhubaneswar.

Dhanush (24), an engineering graduate from BITS-Pilani, worked at a private firm. Ritika (15) was a Class X student.

“As per court orders, the children had to spend 10 days with their father every year” and this time “they were headed to Muktinath in Nepal”, according to a report in The Indian Express.