At least 18 people were killed after a plane crashed while it was taking off from the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu on Wednesday, officials said.
The plane was carrying two crew members and 17 technicians to the nearby city of Pokhara to repair another aircraft and the pilot was the only survivor, officials said.
The aircraft crashed at around 11am local time on Wednesday, according to The Kathmandu Post.
“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.
Local media, citing airport officials, reported that the 9N-AME (CRJ 200) aircraft was carrying technical staff from the airline and there were no paying passengers on board.
“Shortly after take-off … the aircraft veered off to the right and crashed on the east side of the runway,” the Nepal’s civil aviation authority said in a statement.
Footage showed the plane tilting after it took off, before a separate video showed thick plumes of black smoke billowing from the wreckage.
Other images showed rescue workers picking through the charred remains of the plane. Bodies were later carried to ambulances on stretchers as residents watched, television footage showed.
Police, fire engines and ambulances visited the scene, while the airport was closed for several hours, officials said.
“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.
Eighteen of those on board the 50-seater aircraft were Nepali citizens while one engineer was from Yemen, the airline said.
Pokhara’s new airport only opened in January and is equipped with aircraft maintenance hangars, according to officials.
Nepal has come under heavy scrutiny for its poor air safety record after a Yeti Airlines Flight plunged into a gorge in January, killing 72 people. A report by investigators later revealed that the pilots mistakenly cut power which caused the crash.
It came after all 22 passengers and crew members died on a Tara Air flight from Pokhara that crashed 15 minutes after taking off in bad weather in February 2019. A further 51 people were killed when a US-Bangla Airlines flight from Dhaka carrying 71 people crashed in Kathmandu in March 2018.
Nearly 350 people have died in plane or helicopter crashes in the Himalayan country since 2000.
Nepal’s mountainous terrain makes it an infamously difficult country to navigate, with remote runways, bad weather and dated technology posing significant challenges for pilots.
Tenzin-Hillary Airport in Lukla, a popular starting point for people travelling to Mount Everest, has been described as one of the world’s most dangerous airports.