Eighteen people were killed after a plane crashed and caught fire while it was taking off from Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu. The pilot, who is currently receiving treatment in hospital, is the sole survivor of Wednesday’s tragic accident after being rescued from the burning wreckage.
The Saurya Airlines test flight was carrying 17 company employees, including technical staff, along with two crew members. It was en route to the Himalayan tourism hub of Pokhara in the country’s west. Nepal’s aviation industry has a poor safety record, attributed to various factors over the years, from unpredictable weather to lax regulations.
The flight, which was heading for Pokhara as part of a routine maintenance check, crashed at around 11:15 local time (05:30 GMT), a few minutes after taking off from Tribhuvan International Airport, according to a statement by the Nepal Civil Aviation Authority’s search and rescue coordination center. Police spokesperson Dan Bahadur Karki told media that the pilot sustained injuries to his eyes and forehead, but his life was not in danger.
A man who was inside a nearby shop when the accident occurred said: “There was a very loud noise, it sounded like maybe a truck had overturned on the road. We ran after we saw [the crash]. The plane then hit the ground and caught fire. We were about to run to the site but then there was an explosion, so we ran away again,” he told news agency.
Airport chief Jagannath Niraula told media that the accident “happened as soon as it left the ground, in not even a minute,” though airport authorities have not been able to confirm the cause of the disaster. However, the head of Tribhuvan International Airport mentioned that an initial assessment showed that the plane had flown in the wrong direction. “As soon as it took off, it turned right, [when it] should have turned left,” Mr. Niraula told media.
Footage of the incident showed the plane tilting above the runway before crashing into the ground and bursting into flames. It quickly became engulfed in fire and smoke. Photos showed rescue workers making their way through the wreckage, with large parts of the plane completely blackened and charred. Images of the aftermath also appeared to show parts of the plane inside an air freight container. Fire engines and ambulances were rushed to the scene after the incident.
Seventeen of those who died were Nepali, while one was a Yemeni national working as an engineer. “The plane was scheduled to undergo maintenance for a month beginning Thursday… It is unclear why it crashed,” said Saurya Airlines marketing head Mukesh Khanal, as reported by Reuters news agency.
Kathmandu’s airport closed temporarily after the crash but reopened within hours, media said. Nepal has faced criticism for its poor air safety record. In January 2023, at least 72 people were killed in a Yeti Airlines crash that was later attributed to its pilots mistakenly cutting the power. It was the deadliest air crash in Nepal since 1992 when all 167 people aboard a Pakistan International Airlines plane died when it crashed on approach to Kathmandu Airport.
Saurya Airlines operates flights to five destinations within Nepal, with a fleet of three Bombardier CRJ-200 jets, according to the company’s website.
