Pilot only survivor of Nepal plane crashEighteen people were killed after a plane crashed and caught fire while it was taking off from Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu.
The pilot, who is currently receiving treatment in hospital, is the only survivor of Wednesday’s fatal accident after being rescued from the burning wreckage.
The Saurya Airlines flight was carrying 17 company employees, including technical staff, as well as two crew members. It was bound for the Himalayan tourism hub of Pokhara in the country’s west.
Nepal’s aviation industry has a poor safety record that has been attributed to multiple factors over the years, from unpredictable weather to lax regulations.
The flight, which was heading for Pokhara as part of a routine maintenance check, crashed at about 11:15 local time (05:30 GMT), a few minutes after it took off from Tribhuvan International Airport, according to a statement by the Nepal Civil Aviation Authority’s search and rescue co-ordination centre.
Police spokesperson Dan Bahadur Karki told BBC Nepali that the pilot sustained injuries to his eyes and forehead, but said his life was not in danger.
One man who was inside a nearby shop when the accident occurred said: “There was a very loud noise, it sounded like maybe a truck had overturned on the road.
“We ran after we saw [the crash]. The plane then hit the ground and caught fire. We were about to run to the site but then there was an explosion so we ran away again,” he told AFP news agency.
Airport chief Jagannath Niraula told BBC Nepali that the accident “happened as soon as it left the ground, in not even a minute”, though airport authorities have not been able to confirm the cause of the disaster.
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