A passenger plane carrying 22 people has vanished minutes after taking off as the fate of those onboard remains unknown.
The Mirror reports that the small aircraft is carrying 19 passengers and three crew members disappeared on Sunday morning as it flew over a remote mountain range in Nepal.
Nepalese airline Tara Air said the DHC-6 Twin Otter aircraft, callsign 9N-AET, lost contact at 9.55am.
A helicopter has been dispatched to the area where the last contact was made, according to local newspaper the Kathmandu Post.
The plane had 13 Nepalis, four Indians, two Germans and three crew members on board. Seven of the passengers were women.
The Tara Air plane took off from the tourist town of Pokhara, some 125 km (80 miles) west of capital Kathmandu, headed towards Jomsom, about 80 km to the northwest, officials said.
The plane lost contact with the control tower five minutes before it was due to land at Jomsom, a popular tourist and pilgrimage site, an airline official told the Reuters news agency on condition of anonymity.
Tara Air mainly flies Canadian-built Twin Otter turboprop planes.
"One search helicopter returned to Jomsom due to bad weather without locating the plane," the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal said in a statement.
"Helicopters are ready to take off for search from Kathmandu, Pokhara and Jomsom once weather conditions improve.
"Army and police search teams have left towards the site."
There has been an unconfirmed report of a loud noise in the Ghasa area of Jomsom, according to a Jomsom Airport air traffic controller.
There has been heavy rain in the area in the past few days, but flights have been able to continue operating as usual.
The country's weather office said there had been thick cloud cover in the Pokhara-Jomson area since the morning.
Police official Prem Kumar Dani said a land rescue-and-search team had been sent to the area near Mount Dhaulagiri, the world's seventh-highest peak at 8,167 m (26,795 ft).
Nepal, home to eight of the world's 14 highest mountains, including Everest, has a record of air accidents.
Its weather can change suddenly and airstrips are typically sited in difficult-to-reach mountainous areas.
In early 2018, a US-Bangla Airlines flight from Dhaka to Kathmandu crashed on landing and caught fire, killing 51 of the 71 people on board.
In 1992, all 167 people aboard a Pakistan International Airlines plane were killed when it ploughed into a hill as it tried to land in Kathmandu.
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