Nepal: Plane crashes with 18 dead, pilot sole survivor - Video

A passenger plane crashed during takeoff in Kathmandu on Wednesday, July 24 with all 18 people on board killed.

According to police in the Nepali capital, the pilot was rescued from the burning wreckage of the Saurya Airlines flight, which was carrying two crew members and 17 staff members.

"The pilot has been rescued and is being treated. Eighteen bodies have been recovered, including one foreigner," the Nepali police spokesman Dan Bahadur Karki told AFP.

"We are in the process of taking them for post-mortem," he added.

The flight which was bound for the Himalayan tourism hub of Pokhara was reportedly for technical or maintenance purposes, according to Gyanendra Bhul of Nepal's Civil Aviation Authority.

Nepal's aviation industry has faced safety issues attributed to insufficient training and maintenance, compounded by the country's mountainous geography and unpredictable weather conditions. The European Union has banned all Nepali carriers from its airspace over safety concerns.

The last major commercial flight accident in Nepal was in January 2023, when a Yeti Airlines service crashed while landing at Pokhara, killing all 72 aboard.