Pilot survived after cockpit split from plane

The pilot who survived a deadly plane crash in Nepal was saved after his cockpit was sheared off by a freight container seconds before the rest of the aircraft 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 talking and able to tell family members he was “all good”.

Rescuers told the BBC that they had reached the stricken pilot as flames neared the cockpit section of the aircraft embedded in the container.

“He was facing difficulty to breathe as the air shield was open. We broke the window and immediately pulled him out,” Senior Superintendent of Nepal Police Dambar Bishwakarma said.

“He had blood all over his face when he was rescued but we took him to the hospital in a condition where he could speak,” he added.

Nepal’s civil aviation minister Badri Pandey described how the aircraft had suddenly turned right as it took off from the airport, before crashing into the east side of the runway.

CCTV footage shows the aircraft in flames careering across part of the airport before part of it appears to fall into a valley at the far edge of the site.

“It hit the container on the edge of the airport… then, it fell further below,” Mr Pandey said. “The cockpit, however, remained stuck inside the container. This is how the captain survived.”

“The other part of the plane crashed into a nearby mound and it tore into pieces. The entire area away from the region where the cockpit fell down caught fire and everything was burnt,” Mr Pandey said.

The pilot was “rescued within five minutes of the crash” and “was very scared but had not lost consciousness at that time”, according to a statement released by the Nepali army.

An army 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 undergo surgery to treat broken bones in his back.

“We have treated injuries on various parts of his body,” Thapa told BBC News Nepali, “He is under observation in the neuro surgery ward.”

On Wednesday evening, Nepali Prime Minister KP Sharma visited the hospital, where he met members of the pilots family.

Investigations are underway to determine the cause of the crash.

The head of Tribhuvan International Airport said that an initial assessment showed that the plane had flown in the wrong direction.

“As soon as it took off, it turned right, [when it] should have turned left,” Mr Niraula told BBC Nepali.

Nepal has been criticised for its poor air safety record. In January 2023, at least 72 people were killed in a Yeti Airlines crash that was later attributed to its pilots mistakenly cutting the power.

It was the deadliest air crash in Nepal since 1992, when all 167 people aboard a Pakistan International Airlines plane died when it crashed on approach to Kathmandu Airport.

Saruya Airlines operates flights to five destinations within Nepal, with a fleet of three Bombardier CRJ-200 jets, according to the company’s website.