Plane crashes in Nepal with 18 dead, pilot sole survivor

A passenger plane crashed on take-off in Kathmandu on Wednesday, with the pilot rescued from the flaming wreckage but all 18 others aboard killed, police in the Nepali capital told AFP.

Nepal has a woeful track record on aviation safety and the Himalayan republic has seen a spate of deadly light plane and helicopter crashes over the decades.

The Saurya Airlines flight was carrying two crew and 17 of the company's staff members, Nepali police spokesman Dan Bahadur Karki told AFP.

"The pilot has been rescued and is being treated," he added. "Eighteen bodies have been recovered, including one foreigner. We are in the process of taking them for post-mortem."

The Civil Aviation Authority said the dead foreigner was a Yemeni citizen.

A press release from the airport said the aircraft "veered off to the right and crashed on the east side of the runway" shortly after take-off.

The survivor was in serious condition in hospital, it added.

Ram Kumar K.C., who runs a tyre store near the accident site, told AFP the plane caught fire after hitting the ground.

"We were about to run to the site but then there was an explosion so we ran away again," the 48-year-old said.

The flight was being conducted for either technical or maintenance purposes, Gyanendra Bhul of Nepal's Civil Aviation Authority told AFP without giving further details.

Images of the aftermath shared by Nepal's military showed the plane's fuselage split apart and burnt to a husk.

Around a dozen soldiers in camouflage were standing on top of the wreckage with the surrounding earth coated in fire retardant.

The aircraft crashed at around 11:15 am (0530 GMT), the military said in a statement, adding that the army's quick response team had been lending assistance with rescue efforts.

The plane was scheduled to fly on Nepal's busiest air route between Kathmandu and Pokhara, an important tourism hub in the Himalayan republic.

Saurya Airlines exclusively flies Bombardier CRJ 200 jets, according to its website.

- Plagued by poor safety -

Nepal's air industry has boomed in recent years, carrying goods and people between hard-to-reach areas as well as foreign trekkers and climbers.

But it has been plagued by poor safety due to insufficient training and maintenance -- issues compounded by the mountainous republic's treacherous geography.

The European Union has banned all Nepali carriers from its airspace over safety concerns.

The Himalayan country has some of the world's trickiest runways to land on, flanked by snow-capped peaks with approaches that pose a challenge even for accomplished pilots.

The weather can also change quickly in the mountains, creating treacherous flying conditions.

Nepal's last major commercial flight accident was in January 2023, when a Yeti Airlines service crashed while landing at Pokhara, killing all 72 aboard.

That accident was Nepal's deadliest since 1992, when all 167 people aboard a Pakistan International Airlines plane died when it crashed on approach to Kathmandu airport.

Earlier that year a Thai Airways aircraft had crashed near the same airport, killing 113 people.