A small passenger plane belonging to Nepal’s Saurya Airlines crashed and caught fire while taking off from the capital Kathmandu on Wednesday, killing 18 people on board and leaving one survivor, the captain, officials said.
“Only the captain was rescued alive and is receiving treatment at a hospital,” said Tej Bahadur Poudyal, spokesman for Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport.
The 50-seater plane, carrying two crew members and 17 technicians, was heading for regular maintenance to Nepal’s new Pokhara airport, which is equipped with aircraft maintenance hangars, the officials said.
Nearly 360 people have died in plane or helicopter crashes in the country since 2000.
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 investigate the incident, a government spokesman said.
THICK, BLACK SMOKE
Television footage showed fire fighters trying to put out the blaze as thick black smoke rose into the sky. Images also showed the plane flying a little above the runway and then tilting to its right before it crashed.
