ReutersThe pilot who survived a fatal plane crash in Nepal was saved after his cockpit was sheared off by a cargo container seconds before the rest of the plane crashed in flames.
Captain Manish Ratna Shakya, the sole survivor of the disaster that killed 18 people at Kathmandu airport, is being treated in hospital but BBC Nepali has confirmed he is speaking and can tell family members he is “all well”.
Rescuers told the BBC they reached the stricken pilot as flames approached the part of the plane’s cockpit encased in the container.
“He was having difficulty breathing as the windscreen was open. We broke the window and immediately took him out,” said Nepal Police Senior Superintendent Dambar Bishwakarma.
“He had blood all over his face when he was rescued, but we took him to hospital in a condition where he could talk,” he added.
Nepal’s civil aviation minister Badri Pandey described how the plane suddenly turned right as it took off from the airport, before crashing on the eastern side of the runway.
CCTV footage shows the burning plane racing across part of the airport before part of it appears to fall into a valley at the far end of the site.
“The plane hit the container at the edge of the airport… and then it fell further down,” Pandey said. “The cockpit, however, remained stuck inside the container. That’s how the captain survived.”
“The other part of the plane crashed into a nearby hillock and broke into pieces. The entire area away from the area where the cockpit fell caught fire and everything burnt,” Mr Pandey said.
The pilot was “rescued within five minutes of the crash” and “was very frightened but not unconscious at the time,” according to a statement released by the Nepalese army.
A military ambulance then took him to hospital.
According to the hospital’s medical director, Dr Meena Thapa, he suffered injuries to his head and face and will soon have to undergo surgery to repair broken bones in his back.
“We have treated injuries on different parts of his body,” Thapa told BBC News Nepali. “He is under observation in the neurosurgery ward.”
On Wednesday evening, Nepalese Prime Minister KP Sharma visited the hospital, where he met with the pilot’s family members.
Investigations are underway to determine the cause of the accident.
The director of Tribhuvan International Airport said an initial assessment showed the plane had flown in the wrong direction.
“As soon as he took off, he turned right, when he should have turned left,” Mr Niraula told BBC Nepali.
Nepal has been criticized for its poor air safety record. In January 2023, at least 72 people were killed in a Yeti Airlines crash, later attributed to a power outage by pilots.
It was the deadliest air crash in Nepal since 1992, when all 167 people on board a Pakistan International Airlines plane died when it crashed on approach to Kathmandu airport.
Saruya Airlines operates flights to five destinations in Nepal, with a fleet of three Bombardier CRJ-200 jets, according to the company’s website.
