The Seoul Times

A small plane carrying foreign tourists crashed in a hill south of Kathmandu airport early on Sunday, killing all 19 people aboard including the crew members.

The accident site, Kotdanda, lies between Lamatar and Bisankhunarayan VDCs in Lalitpur, around 15 kilometers south of the Tribhuvan International Airport, Kathmandu.

Eighteen dead bodies were recovered from the site and one died in the hospital while undergoing treatment, according to SP Bhog Bahadur Thapa, who is overseeing rescue operations.

In all, there were 19 people—ten Indian, two American, a Japanese, three Nepalese and three have not been identified yet—onboard the Buddha Air beechcraft. The ill-fated aircraft was approaching Kathmandu airport in cloudy weather after completing its mountain flight.

Some locals said the plane caught fire shortly before the crash. While others said it flew lower than its usual course before it crashed.

Buddha Air has suspended all its scheduled flights for Sunday following the accident. It is the first crash involving a Buddha Air plane. Police moved rescue team to the site after they got a call from the locals near the crash site around 8 a.m (local).

We extended our condolences to the death, said Nepal's Home Minister Bijaya Kumar Gachhadher.

Anil Giri serves as Kathmandu Correspondent for The Seoul Times.As a journalist he has worked for such news media as Annapurna Post, BBC, and Himalayan Times for years. He finished his both undergrad Economics degree and his MA degree in English Literature at Tribhuvan Univ., Kathmandu. He also holds a diploma in Development Journalism from prestigious Indian Institute of Mass Communication-IIMC, New Delhi, India.