Kathmandu; A plane with 19 people on board slipped off the runway and crashed on Wednesday while trying to take off from Kathmandu airport. The plane belongs to the domestic Saurya airline and was en route to the resort town of Pokhara from the Nepali capital.
The plane was carrying a few technical staff, Gyanendra Bhul, information officer at the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) told the Himalayan Times. Smoke was seen coming from the plane, and firefighters and security personnel are currently trying to control the situation.
According to reports, 18 passengers on board have been killed in the crash while the pilot managed to survive and has been taken to the Kathmandu Medical College Hospital for treatment. The pilot, identified as Captain MR Shakya, received some injuries in the eyes but was deemed out of danger.
According to eyewitnesses, the plane was taking off from the Southern end of the runway when it suddenly flipped with the wing tip hitting the ground. The aircraft caught fire immediately and plunged into a gorge on the eastern side of the runway. Despite the prevalent monsoon season in Kathmandu, it was not raining at the time of the crash, although visibility was low in the capital. The plane belonged to local Saurya Airlines, which operates domestic flights in Nepal with two Bombardier CRJ-200 regional jets, both around 20 years old, according to Flight Radar 24.
Nepal has a long history of plane crashes, with the rugged mountainous terrain, lack of investment in better planes and infrastructure, unpredictable weather and poor regulation to blame for these accidents. In addition, Nepal has some of the world's most strenuous and remote runways, which pose a challenge for even experienced pilots. These runways are surrounded by snow-capped peaks. The Himalayan country is prone to plane crashes as the weather changes frequently in the mountains.
In January 2023, all 72 passengers were killed after the ATR-72 Yeti Airlines flight crashed into a gorge near the newly-built airport in Pokhara. This was the country's worst air disaster in 30 years and it was later revealed that pilots mistakenly cut power leading to an inadvertent movement of both condition levers causing an aerodynamic stall.
Prior to that, a Tara flight with 22 people on board, including four Indians from Thane, crashed in Nepal’s mountainous Mustang district on May 29, 2022, killing all people on board. In 2019, a Bangladeshi airliner crashed at Tribhuvan airport, killing 51 people while 20 on board survived. An investigation confirmed the plane was misaligned with the runway and its pilot was disoriented and tried to land in “sheer desperation” when the plane crashed.
(with inputs from agencies)
