Eighteen people die in a plane crash at Kathmandu airport in Nepal

According to reports, a regional passenger aircraft operated by Saurya Airlines in Nepal crashed and caught fire on Wednesday while taking off from the country’s capital, Kathmandu, killing eighteen passengers.

According to them, the airplane, which was carrying 17 technicians and two crew members, was headed for routine maintenance at Nepal’s recently opened Pokhara airport, which has hangars for maintaining aircraft.

The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal stated in a statement that “shortly after takeoff… the aircraft veered off to the right and crashed on the east side of the runway.”
According to Saurya, one engineer was from Yemen and the other eighteen passengers were nationals of Nepal.

The spokesperson for Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu, Tej Bahadur Poudyal, stated that “only the captain was rescued alive and is receiving treatment at a hospital.”

Images on television showed firefighters attempting to put out the fire and billowing clouds of black smoke into the sky. Additionally, they displayed the jet hovering just above the runway before it tipped to the right and crashed.

Other images showed locals watching as rescue personnel searched through the burned out wreckage of the aircraft, which was scattered across verdant fields, and as bodies were transferred to ambulances on stretchers.

“Starting on Thursday, the aircraft was supposed to undergo maintenance for a month. The cause of the crash is unknown, according to Saurya Airlines’ marketing head Mukesh Khanal.

After the disaster, the airport in Kathmandu was briefly closed but reopened in a few of hours, according to officials.
The aircraft, registered 9N-AME, is a 50-seater CRJ-200, according to a Saurya Airlines representative.

THE NEPAL AIR SAFETY RECORD

Based on flight tracking data from Flightradar24, Saurya is presently using two CRJ-200 regional planes, which were previously held by Bombardier Canada before being acquired by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in 2020.

A second CRJ-200 is reportedly in Saurya’s fleet.

The Canadian company MHI RJ Aviation Group, to which Bombardier forwarded inquiries regarding the incident, did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Saurya, which was founded in 2014, claims on its website to have brought the “jet experience” to Nepal’s domestic routes and to operate flights to five locations.

Many airlines in the Himalayan nation operate to tiny airports in isolated slopes and close to cloud-covered peaks, contributing to Nepal’s dismal record for air safety. Eight of the fourteen highest mountain peaks in the world are found in Nepal.

The nation’s primary airport is surrounded by mountains and is situated in the center of the Kathmandu Valley. This affects the direction and strength of the wind in the area, making takeoff and landing difficult for pilots.

Since 2000, there have been about 350 fatal plane or helicopter crashes in Nepal. The worst occurrence happened in 1992 when an Airbus operated by Pakistan International Airlines struck a hillside as it approached Kathmandu, killing 167 passengers.

Because of its dismal track record for air safety, Nepal has come under fire. Since 2000, the Himalayan nation has seen close to 350 fatal plane or helicopter crashes.
The worst occurrence happened in 1992 when an Airbus operated by Pakistan International Airlines struck a hillside as it approached Kathmandu, killing 167 passengers.

Most recently, a Yeti Airlines catastrophe in January 2023 claimed the lives of at least 72 people. It was later determined that the pilots’ error in turning off the power was the cause of the tragedy.

According to Flightradar24, the reason it was unable to monitor the downed Saurya flight was that it “was not equipped with a modern ADS-B transponder.”