DOLPA, Nepal — A Sita Air turboprop lost its rear right tyre while landing at Juphal Airport in Nepal’s western Dolpa district on Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026. The detached wheel and disabled aircraft blocked the airport’s single runway and halted flight operations for hours.
All 16 people aboard were unhurt: 13 passengers, including seven foreign nationals and six Nepali citizens, plus three crew members. The New Indian Express and Nepali police confirmed the count of 16, reconciling with earlier wire reports that had cited only the passenger figure.
How the Sita Air tyre came off at Juphal
The aircraft, a Sita Air Dornier Do-228-212 registered 9N-AJH, was flying a scheduled route from Nepalgunj to Juphal when its rear right tyre separated during touchdown at roughly 8:25 a.m. local time, Dolpa district police said. The pilot shut down the engines immediately after the tyre came off, and officials said the aircraft suffered no major structural damage.
“The small aircraft carrying 13 passengers and three crew members met with an accident right on the runway after its rear right tyre came off,” Police Inspector Padam Rawal of the District Police Office, Dolpa, told local media. Anil Raj Giri, a senior Dolpa police officer, separately confirmed to Xinhua that all aboard were safe and that no injuries were reported.
Because the aircraft remained stranded on the strip, Juphal Airport suspended all flight operations. A Nepali Army aircraft approaching to land was forced to turn back, officials at the scene said. Authorities then arranged to fly technicians in by helicopter to repair the aircraft and clear the runway so operations could resume.
A short, high-altitude mountain strip
Juphal Airport, also known as Dolpa Airport, sits at 2,503 meters (8,212 feet) above sea level in Nepal’s Karnali Province, according to official Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal airport data. It serves as the main air link to the remote Dolpa district and the gateway trekking route to Shey-Phoksundo National Park. Like many of Nepal’s mountain airstrips, Juphal has a single short, sloped runway with no parallel taxiway or bypass route, so any aircraft stopped on the strip — intact or not — blocks all arrivals and departures until it is cleared.
That single-runway layout is what makes a detached wheel or tyre such a serious foreign object debris (FOD) hazard at fields like Juphal. A tyre that separates on landing does not simply roll away; fragments, tread, and hardware can scatter across the pavement, and the grounded aircraft itself becomes an obstruction on the only usable surface. At larger airports with parallel runways or taxiways, controllers can often route traffic around a disabled aircraft. At a single-strip field serving small turboprops, however, there is no such option, and every flight — passenger, army, or otherwise — is stopped until the debris and aircraft are removed.
What’s next
Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) regulates the country’s airports and air operators, including the network of short mountain strips that connect remote districts like Dolpa to the rest of the country. As of this report, authorities had not issued a public statement on the cause of the tyre separation. Aviation officials and technical teams were reported to be inspecting both the aircraft and the runway surface to assess safety conditions.
Sita Air operates a fleet of Dornier Do-228 turboprops on short-runway routes across Nepal’s mountainous terrain, including flights to Lukla and other STOL airstrips that demand rugged, short-field-capable aircraft.
Runway obstructions from separated wheels and tyres remain a recurring hazard across aviation, from small mountain strips to major international hubs. FODNews has previously reported on a tyre burst that closed a runway in Nantes, a tyre shredded by runway debris in Cagliari, and a brake-related incident that shut a runway at LAX.
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Sources
- The Kathmandu Post — “Sita Air aircraft tyre comes off during landing at Dolpa airport” (Sept. 24, 2026)
- The Star — “Aircraft tyre comes off while landing in West Nepal” (Sept. 24, 2026, via Xinhua)
- The New Indian Express — “Nepal private airline’s tyre came off during landing at Juphal airport, all 16 passengers safe” (Sept. 24, 2026)
