‘Tyre burst or accident?’: Eyewitnesses recount Nepal plane crash horror.

At least 18 people were killed when Saurya Airlines plane plane caught fire while taking off from Nepal’s capital Kathmandu. Eyewitnesses of the Saurya Airlines plane crash at Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport said they thought the loud sound was caused by a large stone. At least 18 people were killed in the crash after the plane caught fire while taking off from Nepal’s capital Kathmandu on July 24. The Search and Rescue Centre of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal said in a statement that the Bombardier CRJ-200 aircraft suffered a runway excursion and burst into massive flames immediately. “I was working here at my garage in the morning and then I heard a loud sound. We thought a tyre burst but we came to know that a plane had crashed. It had knocked a container, if it wasn’t the container then it surely would have slid down and hit the residential area. The container saved us. It struck the container and came to the ground and got engulfed by fire,” ANI quoted an eye-witness, Aadesh Lama, as saying. Authorities said, fifteen people died at the spot, while three others succumbed to injuries later in the hospital. Airport services in Kathmandu were stopped briefly after the accident but have now restarted. “I heard a loud bang, about three to four of us were here. We first assumed it to be a vehicle accident but it turned out to be an aircraft that had crashed. The plane slid down and stopped, at first there was the sound, then after the smoke billowed and then it was engulfed by fire. I rushed near to the site where the plane crashed and there again was an explosion,” another eye-witness, Krishna Bahadur Thapa told ANI. Saurya operates domestic flights in Nepal with two Bombardier CRJ-200 regional jets, both around 20 years old, according to Flight Radar 24. Nepal has been criticised for a poor air safety record, and nearly 350 people have died in plane or helicopter crashes in the Himalayan country since 2000.