Plane crashes in Nepal after take-off, killing 18, pilot sole survivor

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 flight was being conducted for either technical or maintenance purposes, Gyanendra Bhul of Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority said, without giving further details.

Bahadur and Bhul were unable to confirm the nationality of the sole foreigner aboard.

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