By D. Maan, Jadetimes News
Pilot Sole Survivor of Nepal Plane Crash
Eighteen passengers died Wednesday when their plane crashed and burst into flames upon taking off from Nepal's capital, Kathmandu. The pilot, pulled from the burning wreckage, is the only survivor and is being treated in a hospital. His injuries, to his eyes and forehead, are not life-threatening.
Onboard the ill-fated test flight of Saurya Airlines were 17 employees of the company, including technical staff, along with two crew members. It was heading towards the western part of Nepal—to Pokhara, which is the leading Himalayan tourism hub. "The flight crashed this morning at about 11:15 am local time, minutes after takeoff from Tribhuvan International Airport," said the Search and Rescue Coordination Center, belonging to the Nepal Civil Aviation Authority.
One eyewitness described it as "a really loud noise, like when a truck turns over." One worker in a nearby shop was quoted as saying: "We ran after we saw. The plane hit the ground and then it caught fire. We were going to run to the site, then the explosion happened, so we ran away again."
According to the airport chief, Jagannath Niraula, the accident happened less than a minute after it took off. Preliminary reports indicate that the plane flew in the opposite way to its course, turning right instead of left. Videos of the accident indicate that the plane tilted above the runaway runway before it crashed and burst into flames.
Photographs from the crash site depict rescue workers picking their way through the smoldering wreckage, large sections of the plane wholly blackened. Some pictures show fragments of the plane inside an air freight container. Firefighters responded with fire engines and ambulances, attending immediately to the disaster area.
Of the 18 victims, 17 were Nepali and one a Yemeni national who was working as an engineer. Saurya Airlines marketing head Mukesh Khanal told AFP the plane was due for maintenance from Thursday, adding, "It is not clear why it crashed."
The airport in Kathmandu, from where the plane took off, briefly shut down following the accident but later resumed operations. Nepal has a poor air safety record, with unpredictable weather and lax regulations believed to be the cause. In January 2023, at least 72 people died in a crash by Yeti Airlines – the nation's deadliest air crash since 1992 when 167 people died in a Pakistan International Airlines crash near Kathmandu Airport.
This is an airline that flies to five destinations within Nepal using a fleet of three Bombardier CRJ 200 jets. The crash is under investigation, but this tragedy has once more exposed how the Nepal aviation sector has continued to suffer and grapple with many nagging issues.
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