Nepal rescue plane crashes killing four

A military aircraft with six people on board which went missing in Nepal on Tuesday has crashed, killing at least four passengers, officials say.

The plane was returning to Kathmandu carrying a medical team from a rescue mission in western Nepalganj town when it lost contact with officials.

Rescuers said the chance of finding any survivors was slim.

Plane crashes are fairly common in mountainous Nepal. Last month 19 people died in a crash near Mount Everest.

In another crash last December, all 22 people travelling in a small passenger plane were killed east of Kathmandu.

An army spokesman said that the Britten-Norman Islander plane involved in Tuesday's accident lost communication while flying over a national park in Baglung district.

The plane was carrying a patient along with a doctor, a nurse and a relative of the sick person. There were two crew members on board.

"The plane has scattered into pieces in a dense forest in a gorge-like area in the remote hill," senior police official Uma Prasad Chaturbedi told the AFP news agency.

"This morning [Wednesday], the rescuers retrieved four bodies. Three of them have been badly damaged, hence it is hard to identify their gender."

Nepal army spokesman Rabindra Chetri told the Associated Press that the wreckage was located in an area which was difficult to reach because of the terrain and inclement weather.