On Wednesday, a passenger plane carrying 19 people crashed in Kathmandu during takeoff, leaving 18 people dead and the pilot, who was able to be rescued, as the only survivor, according to police in the Nepalese capital. Nepal has seen numerous fatal plane and helicopter accidents in recent decades.
The Saurya Airlines flight was carrying two crew members and 17 staff members of the Nepalese airline for a test flight, Nepalese police spokesman Dan Bahadur Karki said.
“The pilot was rescued and is being taken care of,” he said.
In total, “18 bodies were found, including that of a foreigner,” declared this spokesperson, specifying that they would be autopsied.
It was a flight carried out for technical or maintenance purposes, Gyanendra Bhul of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal told AFP without giving details.
The identity of the only foreign passenger on board could not be verified by any official. Images shared by the Nepalese army show the plane’s fuselage split and reduced to a burned cabin. About ten soldiers in camouflage uniforms stood on the wreckage on a ground covered with fire retardant.
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The plane caught fire
The plane crashed around 11:15 a.m. (0530 GMT), the military said in a statement. The army’s rapid intervention team is participating in the rescue operations, according to the same source.
According to the Khabarhub news portal, the plane caught fire after skidding on the takeoff runway.
Between Kathmandu and Pokhara, a popular tourist destination in the Himalayan republic, the aircraft was scheduled to travel the busiest air route in Nepal.
Saurya Airlines exclusively operates Bombardier CRJ 200s, according to its website. The Nepalese company only offers domestic flights.
In Nepal, air travel has become increasingly popular in recent years as a means of getting between remote locations, especially for foreign hikers and climbers.
But it is hampered by a lack of safety due to insufficient training and maintenance. Problems are aggravated by the geography of this republic of high mountains.
There is a high potential for unexpected weather changes that make flying risky. The European Union has banned the airspace of all Nepalese carriers for security reasons.
The 72 people on board a Yeti Airlines aircraft died in January 2023 when the plane crashed during landing in Pokhara, marking the last significant commercial aircraft accident to occur in Nepal.
This accident is the deadliest in Nepal since 1992, when all 167 people on board a Pakistan International Airlines plane died when the plane crashed on approach to Kathmandu airport. 113 people were killed when a Thai Airways aircraft crashed close to the same airport that same year.
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