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Jakarta (ANTARA News) - An Indonesian naval officer was among twelve fatalities in a United Nations helicopter crash in Nepal on Monday, an Indonesian Navy spokesman said.

"We have confirmation from an official in Nepal that one of the fatalities in the UN helicopter accident was an Indonesian naval officer, identified as Lt Col Sondang," Commodore Iskandar Sitompul said.

Sondang was in Nepal as a member of a UN peace observing mission.

Meanwhile, AFP reported from Kathmandu, Nepal, that security forces and UN inspectors hunted for clues on Tuesday as to why the United Nations helicopter crashed in mountains in eastern Nepal.

"Experts including engineers have gone with the Nepal Army to the site to try and discover the cause of the crash," home ministry spokesman Modraj Dottel told AFP.

The helicopter went down on Monday afternoon in bad weather and local people told police they saw it on fire before the crash.

The United Nations has said 10 people died -- seven UN team members and three helicopter crew -- but Nepal`s home ministry and local police said they recovered 12 bodies.

"We have recovered 12 sets of remains but we cannot identify any of them," police officer Khinu Prasad Acharya told AFP from the accident scene, some 85 kilometres (50 miles) east of the capital Kathmandu.

"The UN has secured the site (but) the area is still foggy and bad weather has hampered the recovery of the remains," Acharya said.

Nepal`s home ministry said five foreigners were among the dead, but the UN declined to identify the casualties and said it was awaiting information from the teams sent from Kathmandu.

The United Nations is monitoring a peace process which ended a decade of war between the Kathmandu government and former rebel Maoists.

The flight Monday was returning from a visit to a camp containing former Maoist guerrillas, the UN said. (*)

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