A PLANE crashed while taking off from the airport serving Nepal’s capital today, killing 18 people and injuring a pilot who was the lone survivor.

Police official Basanta Rajauri said that authorities have pulled out all 18 bodies. The only survivor was the pilot, who was taken to Kathmandu Medical College Hospital for treatment, said a doctor at the hospital.

The pilot has injuries to the eyes but is not in any danger, the doctor said.

The airline manifest showed there were two pilots and 17 passengers on board the Saurya Airlines plane which was heading from Kathmandu to Pokhara.

It was not clear how the plane 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, was closed as emergency crews worked.

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 landing in dense fog skidded off a slippery runway at the airport. The plane was carrying 238 people but there were no serious injuries.