NEWS– Authorities in Nepal have confirmed that 18 people were killed today morning when a regional passenger plane belonging to Nepal’s Saurya Airlines crashed and caught fire while taking off from the capital Kathmandu.
Nepali Police Spokesman Dan Bahadur Karki told journalists that the plane, carrying two crew members and 17 technicians, was going for regular maintenance to Nepal’s new Pokhara airport, which opened in January and is equipped with aircraft maintenance hangars.
It is reported that shortly after takeoff, the aircraft veered off to the right and crashed on the east side of the runway.
The Nepal Civil Aviation Authority issued a statement saying that eighteen of those on board were Nepali citizens while one engineer was from Yemen.
The spokesman for Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport, Tej Bahadur Poudyal said that only the captain was rescued alive and is receiving treatment at a hospital.
Television visuals showed fire fighters trying to put out the blaze and thick black smoke rising into the sky and they also showed the plane flying a little above the runway and then tilting to its right before it crashed.
Other visuals showed rescue workers rummaging through the charred remains of the plane, strewn in lush green fields, and bodies being carried to ambulances on stretchers as local residents looked on.
The Head of Marketing of Saurya Airlines, Mukesh Khanal said that the plane was a 50-seater CRJ-200 aircraft with the registration was scheduled to undergo maintenance for a month beginning tomorrow and it is unclear why it crashed and Kathmandu airport was closed temporarily following the crash but reopened within hours.
Nepal has been criticized for a poor air safety record, exacerbated by many airlines in the Himalayan country flying to small airports in remote hills and near peaks shrouded in clouds.
Nepal is home to eight of the world’s 14 tallest mountain peaks located in the heart of the Kathmandu Valley, the country’s main airport is ringed by mountains, affecting wind directions and intensity in the area and making takeoff and landing a challenge for pilots.
Nearly 350 people have died in plane or helicopter crashes in Nepal since 2000 and the deadliest incident occurred in 1992, when a Pakistan International Airlines Airbus crashed into a hillside while approaching Kathmandu killing 167 people.
Most recently, at least 72 people were killed in a Yeti airlines crash in January 2023 that was later attributed to the pilots mistakenly cutting off power.
Additional Reporting from Reuters
