Nepal airport closed after plane skids off runway

Nepal's only international airport was closed Friday after a plane skidded off the recently repaired runway, injuring two people, officials said.

The country has a poor flight safety record -- Nepali airlines are banned from European Union airspace -- and its airports are notoriously difficult to land in.

The Yeti Airlines ATR 72-500, arriving into Kathmandu from southern Nepal with 66 passengers, skidded about 15 meters (yards) into the grass.

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"Our teams are working to remove the plane and reopen the airport," the airport's general manager Raj Kumar Chettri told AFP.

Chettri said that removing the Franco-Italian-made turboprop plane was taking a long time because heavy rain has made the area muddy.

Authorities took 11 hours to remove a domestic aircraft that suffered a similar runway excursion in September last year, months after a Malaysian jet with 139 people on board had aborted its takeoff and skidded off the runway.

In March 2018, a US-Bangla Airways plane crashed near the airport, killing 51 people.

The Himalayan nation has some of the world's most remote and tricky runways, flanked by snow-capped peaks with approaches that pose a challenge for even accomplished pilots.