No signs of missing ultra-light aircraft

POKHARA, Oct 9: No trace of 9N-ALI ultra-light aircraft that had gone missing in Pokhara skies was found even on the second day of the search operation on Friday.

The aircraft had lost contact after taking off from Pokhara Airport on Thursday morning at 10:35 am. Two persons were on board, including a pilot and a passenger."We have looked for the missing aircraft in every possible area the whole day on Friday," said the Airport Chief Deepak Baral. "Yet, we found no traces of it."

The aircraft was piloted by Russian pilot Vallery Putin, 50 and South African tourist Elizabeth Well, 40, was the passenger. The flight lost contact somewhere over Sarangkot.

Chairman of Pokhara Ultralight Company Praveen Baniya informed that aerial search was conducted in all the possible areas. "The search conducted through helicopters has yielded no result as yet. Now we'll carry out manual search in jungle areas. We have requested help from the Police and the Army for the search operation," he said.

The aircraft had integrated parachutes for emergency landing. The company suspects that the aircraft might have faced with a sudden problem and both the passenger and pilot got no chance to open the parachute.

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