Air crash relatives arrive in Nepal

FOLLOWING the same flight path over the Himalayas as the Pakistan airliner that crashed on Monday killing all 167 people on board, relatives of the victims landed yesterday in Kathmandu.

The family members of the 35 Britons who died arrived in Nepal aboard a special Pakistan International Airlines charter. The aircraft passed only 2,500ft (761.9m) above the mountain where the accident occurred, but it was not possible to see the wreckage, which was shrouded in grey cloud.

The Foreign Office had advised relatives against trying to identify their kin because the bodies were too badly disfigured when the airliner smashed into the mountain and exploded. However, after the relatives were met by embassy staff, one Briton angrily left the airport looking for his brother's body. He said he wanted to photograph it. He was restrained before reaching the end of the tarmac, where the bodies have been stored after being brought in by helicopter from the crash site.

Eventually, embassy officials persuaded him that the sight of the charred corpses would be too shocking and that it would be impossible to prove which of the victims might be his brother.

At the airport, another relative lunged at a photographer taking pictures of the mourners.

Unofficially, Nepali aviation authorities said that the Pakistani pilot told the control tower by radio that, 10 miles away, he was flying at 8,200ft (2,499m). At that distance, he should have been 1,300ft (396m) higher to clear the jagged ridges around Kathmandu. Forty seconds elapsed after that message before the plane crashed, yet no warning was issued by the control tower to the pilot, according to reliable aviation sources.

Over 150 bodies have been recovered, but British forensic scientists say that identifying the bodies could take several months. The Nepali government has offered land for a mass grave.

Archie Hamilton, Minister of State for the Armed Forces, yesterday attempted to reach the crash site by helicopter and lay a wreath, but clouds were too heavy. He said that the PIA flight 268 had been 'on the right course, but just a disastrous number of feet too low. If all procedures had been followed, this accident wouldn't have happened'. The black box containing flight data vital to proving why the airbus ran into the 7,200ft (2,194m) mountain has not been found.