An Australian, killed along with his partner in a Nepal plane crash, planned to ask her to marry him after their Himalayan adventure.
Andrew Frick McLeod, 31, and his girlfriend Charlene Kate Zamudio, 24, were flying from Kathmandu into Nepal when the plane clipped a security fence while landing at Lukla's airport on Wednesday. A dozen German tourists and four Nepalese also died in the crash.
Ms Zamudio's grief-stricken sister Natasha said Mr Frick McLeod had planned to ask Charlene to marry him when they returned to Australia.
"I hadn't told anyone this, but just before they left Andrew rang me and told me he was going to propose to her when they came back," Natasha told reporters in Melbourne.
"He wanted me to go with him to find a ring."
Natasha said she found out about her sister's death when the trekking company rang the family home to ask for insurance details.
"And I said: 'What are you talking about?' and I was like: 'No they haven't died', and he said,: 'Oh, your embassy should've contacted you, they're dead'," she said.
The Melbourne couple, who were together for three years, had been on a six-day trek in the Himalayas and were on their way to trek around Mt Everest.
Relatives said the pair should have been on a flight three days earlier but had been delayed by lost luggage.
Mr Frick McLeod's father Bruno Frick said they died doing what they wanted to do.
"They were young and adventurous, full of life," a heart-broken Mr Frick said.
"They so much enjoyed the trek. It's good that they're together.
"I love them both so much. They were so full of life and adventure. It's a tragedy.
"It was their first decent holiday together. He was really wanting to settle down and start a family."
He said young people should not be deterred from seeing the world because of tragedies such as this.
"You've got to live your life - it's love, it's life, it's precious," he said.
Andrew's stepmother Helen, spoke of the love between the couple.
"She was his sweetheart," she said.
A spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) said it was not known when the bodies would be returned to Australia.
The bodies have been flown by a military helicopter to Kathmandu.
Only the pilot of the 19-seater Yeti Airlines Twin Otter survived the crash.
He was flown to an intensive care unit in Kathmandu where doctors said he was in a stable condition.
Officials say poor visibility caused the crash at the tiny airstrip.
"The plane crash was due to poor visibility," Mohan Adhikari, a senior airport official, told AFP.
The airport is the gateway to Nepal's Everest region and used by thousands of trekkers and mountaineers each year to access the stunning Himalayan range that forms Nepal's northern border with Chinese-controlled Tibet.
The weather at the airport in Lukla, 140km northeast of Kathmandu, changes frequently and swiftly.
Pilots are supposed to have 5km of visibility to land at the 550 metre-long sloping airstrip perched on a hillside 2,757 metres above sea level, Adhikari said.
"When the flight left Kathmandu, they had 5km of visibility at Lukla, but by the time they arrived after 40 minutes of flying, visibility suddenly worsened," said Adhikari.
"Two planes had already landed that morning so the pilot (of the plane that crashed) must have thought he could too."
The plane slammed into the hillside and burst into flames about 50 metres short of the runway at the airport, named after Everest pioneers Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay.
"When the aeroplane was on its final approach, suddenly fog and heavy mist came up from the valley below. The plane descended and disappeared inside the thick mist and very shortly afterward we heard a big bang," said Suraj Kunwar, a journalist for Nepal media group Kantipur who witnessed the crash.
The surviving pilot was recovering from his injuries and would be interviewed as part of a probe by Nepal's government, Adhikari said.
A forensic team from Germany was on its way to assist in the identification of the 12 German tourists killed, Modraj Dottel, Nepal's home ministry spokesman told AFP.
"We have accepted a request from the German embassy to bring in a team of five people to help identify the bodies," the official said.