A domestic plane crashed Wednesday while taking off from the airport serving Nepal's capital, killing 18 people and injuring a pilot who was the lone survivor.
Police official Basanta Rajauri said authorities have pulled out all 18 bodies.
The only survivor was the pilot, who was taken to Kathmandu Medical College Hospital for treatment. A doctor at the hospital said the pilot had eye injuries but was not in any danger.
The airline manifest showed two pilots and 17 passengers on board. The crew and 16 passengers were Nepali nationals, with one identified as a foreigner, but no nationality was disclosed.
The Saurya Airlines plane was heading from Kathmandu to the resort town of Pokhara.
It was not clear how it slipped.
Local media images showed smoke rising and plane wreckage scattered all over a ditch. A fire has been brought under control.
Tribhuvan International Airport, the main airport in Nepal for international and domestic flights, has been closed while emergency crews work.
It is the monsoon rainy season in Kathmandu, but it did not rain at the time of the crash. Visibility was low across the capital, however.
Saurya Airlines operates the Bombardier CRJ 200 on domestic routes.
The Kathmandu airport, the main airport serving Nepal, is located inside a valley surrounded by mountains on most sides. It is considered a challenging airport for pilots, and bigger planes have to come through an opening on the mountain to land. The airport is right next to the city and is surrounded by residential areas.
In 2019, a Bangladeshi airliner crashed at Tribhuvan airport, killing 51 people while 20 on board survived. An investigation confirmed the plane was misaligned with the runway, and its pilot was disoriented and tried to land in “sheer desperation” when the plane crashed.
In 2015, a Turkish Airlines jet landed in dense fog and skidded off a slippery runway at the airport. The plane was carrying 238 people, but there were no serious injuries.
