At least five people were killed after a helicopter carrying Mexican tourists crashed near Mount Everest on Tuesday morning.

The Manang Air chopper took off from Surke in Nepal at about 10am local time heading for the capital Kathmandu, but lost contact with air traffic control 10 minutes later.

Rescuers have recovered the bodies of five people and were searching for the sixth, said Basanta Bhattarai, the chief government administrator in the area.

Airport officials said weather conditions had caused changes to be made to the helicopter’s planned flight route.

The tourist and mountaineering season ended in May with the onset of the rainy season and tourist flights to the mountains are less common at this time of year as visibility is poor and weather conditions become unpredictable.

Nepal is notorious for its poor aviation safety record, and the latest incident comes almost six months after a plane crash near the central tourist town of Pokhara which killed all 72 people on board.

The Himalayan country has some of the world’s most remote runways, flanked by snow-capped peaks with approaches that pose a challenge even for accomplished pilots.

The European Union has banned all Nepali carriers from its airspace over safety concerns.