Nepal plane crash: Separated Thane couple, their kids were on a court-ordered holiday when tragedy struck

New Delhi: The bustling city of Thane struggled to come to terms with the death of four members of a family - an estranged couple and their two kids - whose yearly vacation in picturesque Nepal was tragically cut short when the plane carrying them crashed in mountains in the neighboring country. Businessman Ashok Kumar Tripathi and his Thane-based estranged wife Vaibhavi Bandekar Tripathi were on a reunion trip to the Himalayan country along with their kids, son Dhanush (22) and daughter Ritika (15) when the tragedy struck on Sunday.

Ashok Tripathi (54), who ran a company in Odisha, and Vaibhavi Tripathi (51), who worked in a financial firm in Mumbai, had separated following court orders, an official from the Kapurbawdi police station in Thane said on Monday.

As per court orders, the family was to be together for 10 days a year and this year they had planned a trip to Nepal.

Their plane, belonging to private Tara Air, went missing on Sunday morning in the mountainous region of Nepal minutes after taking off from the tourist city of Pokhara. Besides the four Indian nationals, the plane was carrying two Germans and 13 Nepali passengers, besides a three-member Nepali crew.

Rescuers have now pulled out all the bodies from the wreckage of the crashed Nepalese plane.