KATHMANDU: Eighteen people were killed when a small passenger plane belonging to Nepal's Saurya Airlines crashed and caught fire while taking off from the capital Kathmandu on Wednesday, officials said.
The plane, carrying two crew members and 17 technicians, was going for regular maintenance to Nepal's new Pokhara airport, which opened in January last year and is equipped with aircraft maintenance hangars, they said. "Shortly after takeoff ... the aircraft veered off to the right and crashed on the east side of the runway," the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal said in a statement.
Nepal's prime minister, K.P. Sharma Oli, visited the crash site and asked people to "be patient" in a social media post, without elaborating. An emergency cabinet meeting was called to form a panel to probe the crash, a government spokesman said.
Eighteen of those on board the crashed 50-seater CRJ-200 aircraft, with the registration 9N-AME, were Nepali citizens while one engineer was from Yemen, Saurya said.
"Only the captain was rescued alive and is receiving treatment at a hospital," said Tej Bahadur Poudyal, the spokesman for Kathmandu's Tribhuvan International Airport.
Television visuals showed fire fighters trying to put out the blaze and thick black smoke rising into the sky. Images also showed the plane flying a little above the runway and then tilting to its right before it crashed. Other visuals showed rescue workers examining the charred remains of the plane, strewn in lush green fields, and bodies being carried to ambulances on stretchers as residents looked on.
"The plane was scheduled to undergo maintenance for a month beginning Thursday ... It is unclear why it crashed," said Mukesh Khanal, marketing head of Saurya Airlines. Kathmandu airport was closed temporarily following the crash but reopened within hours, officials said.
According to Flightradar24 flight tracking, Saurya currently operates two CRJ-200 regional jets, a programme that was owned by Canada's Bombardier but which was bought by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in 2020. Saurya says it has another CRJ-200 in its fleet. Bombardier referred questions about the incident to Canada-based MHI RJ Aviation Group, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Located in the heart of the Kathmandu Valley, the country's main airport is ringed by mountains, affecting wind directions and intensity in the area and making takeoff and landing a challenge for pilots. — Reuters
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