KATHMANDU, July 24: At least 18 people were killed when an airline carrying 19 skidded off the runway and crashed at Nepal’s Kathmandu airport, in the latest plane crash incident in the country where such occurrences have become alarmingly common.
The aircraft belonging to a private airline company crashed during takeoff at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu on July 24 morning. The accident occurred around 11 am, as the Pokhara-bound Saurya Airlines plane took off.
Among the people on the plane, two were crew members and 17 were technicians, media reported quoting Airport Security Chief Arjun Chand Thakuri.
“It (the plane) caught fire after skidding off the runway at Kathmandu airport and crashing into a field east of the runway,” the airport official added.
“The pilot of the aircraft has been taken to a hospital,” a security official deployed at the airport told news agency PTI without giving further details.
“A fire that broke out from the aircraft has been put off,” the official told the agency.
Saurya Airlines, to which the plane belonged, flies domestic flights in Nepal with two Bombardier CRJ-200 regional jets, both around 20 years old, Flight Radar 24 data showed.
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