KATHMANDU, July 12 (Xinhua) -- After a complete halt for eight hours, Nepal's sole international airport Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) has resumed regular flight operations from Friday evening.
The airport had remained closed from Friday morning after an aircraft of Yeti Airlines, which was flying from western city Nepalgunj, skidded off the runway. All 66 passengers including two infants and three flight crew members onboard were reportedly safe.
"The 9N-AMM ATR-500 aircraft has been successfully recovered and removed to remote parking bay. TIA Kathmandu airport is open," Yeti Airlines said in a statement.
All the incoming flights were transferred to other countries while the outgoing flights were halted after the authorities failed to remove the aircraft from the site. Thousands of passengers of both incoming and outgoing flights were affected, while the incident caused losses for the airline companies.
According to airport officials, a team of technicians and engineers from Nepal Army, Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal, TIA and airline officials were engaged for hours to clear the runway amid heavy rainfall.
