18 die in Saurya Airlines plane crash, pilot survives

Kathmandu, July 25: A Saurya Airlines aircraft crashed immediately after it took off from the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) in Kathmandu on Wednesday, killing 18 of 19 persons aboard the plane.  

The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) has confirmed the death of 18 persons aboard the aircraft which crashed inside the TIA ground. 

A total of 19 persons, including two crew members, were in the Pokhara-bound flight, with registration number CRJ200 9N-AME, which took off from Kathmandu TIA from runway-02 at 11:11 am, the Aviation authority said in a statement.

Mukesh Khanal, Chief of Sales and Marketing of the Airlines, said that all 19 people on board were crew members and employees of the company. He also mentioned that there were no other civilians on the plane.

The aircraft had suffered a runway excursion and plunged into a gorge on the eastern side of the airport. According to a statement issued by the Rescue Coordination Centre (RCC) of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal, shortly after takeoff from runway 02, the aircraft veered off to the right and crashed on the east side of the runway.

Captain Manish Ratna Shakya was rescued from the crash site and has been admitted to the KMC Hospital in Sinamangal for treatment, Nepal Police’s central spokesperson Dan Bahadur Karki said. However, co-pilot Sushant Katuwal was killed in the accident. 

According to the Nepal Police, all the passengers were airline staff travelling to Pokhara for aircraft maintenance. There was one foreign national in the maintenance team.

Those on the plane included Amit Man Maharjan, Sagar Acharya, Dilip Verma, Manu Raj Sharma, Ashwin Niraula, Sudip Lal Joshi, Sarbesh Marasini, Shyam Bindukar, Navaraj Ale, Raja Ram Acharya, Priza Khatiwada, Adhiraj Sharma, Uddhab Puri, Yagya Prasad Poudyal, Santosh Mahato, Punya Ratna Saah and Aref Reda. Reda was a Yemeni national.

Eyewitnesses present outside the crash site have said that the plane was taking off from the southern end of the runway (Koteshwor side) and suddenly flipped with the wing tip in the right direction hitting the ground. 

The aircraft caught fire immediately. It then plunged into a gorge on the eastern side of the runway—between Buddha Air hanger and the radar station. 

As soon as the plane took-off, it turned in the right direction and the cockpit hit a container placed on the ground and one part of the cockpit lay in the same place while the body of the plane somersaulted and reached some 20 to 30 metres away from the ground hitting point, said the eyewitnesses close to the crash site. 

Meanwhile, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and Minister for Home Affairs Ramesh Lekhak reached the crash site to observe the situation and take briefing from the security officials.

Prime Minister Oli reached the scene after meeting with officials from the Aviation Authority. Similarly, Home Minister Lekhak also reached the site immediately after the accident, said DIG and chief of TIA Airport Security Office, Ram Dutt Joshi of Nepal Police.

After visiting the crash site, Prime Minister Oli took a briefing at the Civil Aviation Authority’s rescue coordination centre at the Tribhuvan International Airport. Prime Minister Oli said that the incident was very sad, heartbreaking and unimaginable. 

He expressed his heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families. He wished for the speedy recovery of the injured captain. Stating that the government would make necessary decisions regarding further work to be done in this regard, he directed the relevant agencies and parties to be careful so that such incidents do not occur in the future.

“How did the incident happen? Human or technical failure?” he asked the officials to understand the situation. 

During the briefing, Minister for Home Affairs Lekhak, Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Badri Prasad Pandey, Acting Chief Secretary Lila Devi Gadtaula were also present. 

The bodies recovered from the site have been taken to the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital in Maharajgunj for postmortem and DNA test to confirm the bodies.

Critically injured captain Shakya has been receiving treatment at the ICU bed of the Kathmandu Medical College (KMC), Sinamangal, said police. 

926 dead in 66 crashes since 1955  

Prior to this, Tara Air crashed in Pokhara’s Seti George killing 72 on board, including four crew members on January 15, 2023.  Before the Tara Air crash in Pokhara, another Tara Air Twin Otter plane flying from Pokhara to Jomsom crashed on a cliff in Thasang Rural Municipality-2, Mustang, on May 29, 2022, killing 22 people, including three crew members. 

This is the 66th accident in Nepali skies involving human casualties. In total, 109 aircraft accidents have been recorded in Nepal.

According to the data of the Nepal Civil Aviation Authority, from 1955 to 2024, a total of 109 aircraft accidents occurred in Nepal, with human casualties in 66 of them. 

How captain Shakya survived?

In the crash of Saurya Airlines plane on Wednesday, 18 out of 19 people lost their lives. The condition of the surviving pilot, Manish Raj Shakya, is said to be out of danger, according to the KMC Hospital on Wednesday afternoon. 

Captain Shakya has undergone an eye surgery and doctors attending him are preparing to do another surgery of his spinal cord. 

According to Deputy Inspector General and Chief of TIA Airport Security Office Ram Dutt Joshi, Captain Shakya was rescued from inside the container which was already on the ground of the TIA premises. 

Airport security said when the plane hit the container, the front part (cockpit) got stuck in it, while the rest of the plane fell to the ground reaching another side of the ground.

“We rescued Captain Shakya from inside the container,” DIG Joshi said. The plane, which took off from Tribhuvan International Airport for Pokhara, crashed to the ground while hitting a container placed at one end of the airport within less than half a minute.

Meanwhile, three members of a single family died in the Saurya Airlines crash on Wednesday. It was Manu Raj Sharma’s family, who was an employee and technician of the aircraft, who died in the crash along with his wife Priza Khatiwada and his four-year-old son Adhiraj. Priza was also an employee at the Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation working as an assistant computer operator.