KATHMANDU: Nepal said on Saturday that pilot error was the cause of a plane crash that killed on 19 people on board, including 7 Britons, on Friday. The twin-propeller Sita Air plane had just taken off on Friday from Kathmandu and was en route to the town of Lukla, the gateway to Mount Everest, when it plunged into the banks of a river near the city's airport. “The pilot's failure to maintain the required radius is a likely cause of the accident,” said senior ministry official Suresh Acharya, adding the plane turned too sharply because it had not gained enough altitude. The Sita Air plane was carrying 19 people on board, 16 passengers and three crew members, including 7 Britons and five Chinese tourists and 7 Nepalis heading for the Everest region in the season of trekking. Officials in Nepal said the pilot made a maneuver right after take off before the plan crashed on a river bank and caught fire. Kathmandu airport officials said the plane crashed into a bird and the pilot tried to move it and land safely by the river, but the plane caught fire. Fatal air crashes are common in Nepal, where many visitors choose to fly to avoid the under-developed and winding road networks of the country. The Friday crash is the country's 6th in less than two years. In May of this year a plane crash left 15 people dead and only 6 survived when their plane tried landing at an airport in the north of the country in the Annapurna mountain region. In September 2011, a small sight-seeing plane crashed when it attempted to land in the capital's airport due to bad weather.
