KATHMANDU—According to officials, a small passenger jet operated by Saurya Airlines in Nepal crashed and caught fire on Wednesday when it was taking off from the country's capital, killing eighteen people.
The airplane, which was carrying 17 technicians and two crew members, was headed to Nepal's recently opened Pokhara airport for routine maintenance. Pokhara airport has hangars for aircraft repair, and it opened in January of last year.
“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.
The accident brought attention to the terrible record of aviation safety of the landlocked, impoverished Himalayan nation, which is positioned between China and India and highly dependent on air communication because of its sparse road network.
Since 2000, the nation has had close to 350 fatal plane or helicopter disasters.
The prime minister of Nepal, K.P. Sharma Oli visited the scene of the incident and, in a brief social media message, urged people to "be patient." A government spokeswoman said that a cabinet emergency meeting had been summoned to establish a panel to investigate the disaster.
According to Saurya, eighteen individuals on board the downed 50-seater CRJ-200 aircraft, registered 9N-AME, were nationals of Nepal, while one engineer was from Yemen.
“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.
Images on television showed firefighters attempting to put out the fire and billowing clouds of black smoke into the sky. Images further revealed the aircraft hovering just above the runway before slanting to the right and ultimately crashing.
Other images showed neighbors watching as rescue personnel examined the burnt remnants of the airliner scattered across verdant fields and as dead were transferred to ambulances on stretchers.
“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.
The two CRJ-200 regional planes that Saurya now operates are tracked by Flightradar24. Bombardier, a Canadian company, formerly held the program, but Mitsubishi Heavy Industries acquired it in 2020.
A second CRJ-200 is reportedly in Saurya's fleet.
The Canadian company MHI RJ Aviation Group, to which Bombardier forwarded inquiries on the incident, did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Nepal has come under fire for having a dismal reputation for aviation safety, since many airlines operate to tiny airports in isolated slopes and close to cloud-covered peaks. Eight of the top 14 highest peaks in the world are located in this nation.
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.
The worst occurrence was in 1992 when an Airbus operated by Pakistan International Airlines struck a mountainside 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.
