A total of 18 people have died in the Saurya Airlines plane crash in Kathmandu today morning. The Pokhara-bound airplane with call sign 9 NAME met with an accident during the takeoff at the Tribhuvan International Airport. There were 19 passengers on board the plane, including crew members.

The plane skidded off the runway and fell into a ditch on the east side of the runway. The dead bodies of 18 people onboard an ill-fated plane that were scattered all over were retrieved, said SSP Dambar BK, the security officer deployed at the airport.

Preparations are underway to take those retrieved dead bodies to the Teaching Hospital at Maharajgunj, shared SSP BK. One of the pilots of the plane has been rescued alive, he added. The aircraft that was flying to Pokhara with staffers and a technician for maintenance crashed accidently.

Domestic flights at TIA have been affected in the wake of the crash.