ALBAWABA - A commercial flight, carrying 19 passengers crashed during takeoff at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu, Nepal earlier this morning. Several deaths were reported.
UPDATE
Nepali police told AFP that 18 people out of the 19 on board have been killed. "Eighteen bodies have been recovered, including one foreigner," police spokesman Dan Bahadur Karki told AFP.
Firefighting crews were immediately deployed to the scene to help battle the fire that engulfed the crashed aircraft. Nepal's military released a statement saying that the Saurya Airlines plane crashed at around 11:15 am.
The military reported that several deaths were recorded at the scene, while the pilot was rescued. Local police spokesman Dan Bahadur Karki told AFP that the pilot had been rescued.
"The pilot has been rescued and is being treated. It is not possible to confirm the status of others on board right now. Many have not survived," he added.
The army sent out quick response teams to lend assistance with the rescue efforts at the crash site. Local news portal Khabarhub reported that the airplane had caught fire after skidding on the runway.
Nepal's latest major commercial aircraft disaster took place in January 2023, when a Yeti Airlines service crashed on landing in Pokhara, killing all 72 people on board.
