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Agence France-Presse

A passenger plane crashed on take-off in Kathmandu on Wednesday, with the pilot rescued from the flaming wreckage, but all 18 others aboard killed, police in the Nepali capital said.
Nepal has a woeful track record on aviation safety, and the Himalayan republic has seen a spate of deadly light plane and helicopter crashes over the decades.
The Saurya Airlines flight was carrying two crew and 17 of the company’s staff members, said Nepali police spokesman Dan Bahadur Karki.
“The pilot has been rescued and is being treated,” he added. “Eighteen bodies have been recovered, including one foreigner. We are in the process of taking them for postmortem.”
The Civil Aviation Authority said the dead foreigner was a Yemeni citizen.




A press release from the airport said the aircraft “veered off to the right and crashed on the east side of the runway” shortly after take-off.
The survivor was in serious condition in hospital, it added.
Ram Kumar K.C., who runs a tyre store near the accident site, said the plane caught fire after hitting the ground.
“We were about to run to the site, but then there was an explosion, so we ran away again,” the 48-year-old said.
The flight was being conducted for either technical or maintenance purposes, Gyanendra Bhul of Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority said, without giving further details.


Images of the aftermath shared by Nepal’s military showed the plane’s fuselage split apart and burnt to a husk.
Around a dozen soldiers in camouflage were standing on top of the wreckage, with the surrounding earth coated in fire retardant.
The plane crashed at around 11:15am,, the military said in a statement, adding that the army’s quick response team had been lending help with rescue efforts.
News portal Khabarhub reported that the aeroplane had caught fire after skidding on the runway.
The plane was scheduled to fly on Nepal’s busiest air route between Kathmandu and Pokhara, an important tourism hub in the Himalayan republic.
Saurya Airlines exclusively flies Bombardier CRJ 200 jets, according to its website.

Nepal’s air industry has boomed in recent years, carrying goods and people between hard-to-reach areas, as well as foreign trekkers and climbers.
But it has been plagued by poor safety due to insufficient training and maintenance – issues compounded by the mountainous republic’s treacherous geography.
The European Union has banned all Nepali carriers from its airspace over safety concerns.
The Himalayan country has some of the world’s trickiest runways to land on, flanked by snow-capped peaks with approaches that pose a challenge even for accomplished pilots.

The weather can also change quickly in the mountains, creating treacherous flying conditions.
Nepal’s last major commercial flight accident was in January 2023, when a Yeti Airlines service crashed while landing at Pokhara, killing all 72 aboard.
That accident was Nepal’s deadliest since 1992, when all 167 people aboard a Pakistan International Airlines plane died when it crashed on approach to Kathmandu airport.
Earlier that year, a Thai Airways aircraft had crashed near the same airport, killing 113 people.


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Plane crashes at Nepal’s Kathmandu airport after take-off, killing 18, pilot sole survivor

The bodies of 18 people were recovered while one injured person was taken to hospital after a plane crash in Nepal. Photo:  EPA-EFE

The site of an air crash at the Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu, Nepal. Photo: Xinhua

A family member of a victim reacts outside a hospital after a Saurya Airlines plane caught fire after skidding off the runway while taking off at Tribhuvan International Airport, in Kathmandu. Photo: Reuters

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A relative of the victims places a sunflower on the memorial plaque during the commemoration of the victims of the MH17 air disaster at the National Monument in Vijfhuizen Park near Schiphol, the Netherlands. Photo: EPA-EFE

Malaysian Scot Choo attends a memorial service for the victims of the ill-fated MH17 flight, including his pilot-father Eugene Choo, in the Netherlands on July 17 along with his brother Melvic and mother Ivy Loi. Photo: Amy Chew

Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof speaks during the commemoration of the victims of the MH17 air disaster at the National Monument in Vijfhuizen Park near Schiphol, the Netherlands. Photo: EPA-EFE

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Nepal’s political shift complicates its India-China balancing act

Nepal’s newly elected Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli (right) is congratulated by Nepali Congress Party Chairman Sher Bahadur Deuba in Kathmandu on July 15. Photo: AP

Farmers plant rice in Nepal’s Dhading district in June. Photo: AFP

This Budhi Gandaki river bend in Nepal, the proposed site for a Chinese-built dam under the Belt and Road Initiative, in 2019. Photo: Sarah Zheng

Chinese and Nepalese people walk across the China-Nepal Friendship Bridge at Zham port in southwest China’s Tibet autonomous region in September 2023. Photo: Xinhua

Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal (left) chats with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi before their meeting at Hyderabad House, in New Delhi, India, in June 2023. Photo: EPA-EFE

TikTok video posted by crew member who died in Nepal plane crash goes viral as people pay tribute to her

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Nepal plane crash: infrastructure revamp needed to cope with ‘treacherous terrain’, experts say

Rescue teams work to retrieve bodies from the wreckage of the crash of a Yeti Airlines aircraft, in Pokhara, Nepal on Monday. Photo: Reuters

A woman cries as the body of a relative is brought to a hospital in Pokhara, Nepal on Sunday after a plane crashed into a gorge while landing at a newly opened airport. Photo: AP

Rescuers scour the crash site in the wreckage of a passenger plane in Pokhara, Nepal on Monday. Photo: AP

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Asia

South Asia

The plane had already taken off and turned right before it crashed in the eastern section of the airport, a statement said


The plane had already taken off and turned right before it crashed in the eastern section of the airport, a statement said.


Plane crashes and aviation accidents

Aviation