Authorities say that a Sita Air Flight has crashed along the banks of the Manohara River in Nepal today shortly after it took off from the airport at Kathmandu, Nepal's capital city.

The plane was on its way to Lukia, which is the gateway to Mount Everest in the Himalayas. Aboard the aircraft was four Nepalese, five Chinese and seven British passengers as well as three Nepalese crew. All 19 were killed in the crash.

The aircraft, a Dornier, was cleared for take-off at 6:17 am. Within a minute the pilot radioed the airport to report that one of his engines had suffered a bird-strike. He informed the tower that he was turning around and was going to attempt to land. They were unsuccessful.

Normally, a two-engine aircraft can continue to fly with one engine out if the aircraft has sufficient altitude and airspeed. It wasn’t the case in this instance.This is the fifth instance of a domestic airlines crashing there in two years, not including 4 helicopter crashes. 114 people have died in crashes there in the last six years.

Autumn of the year is the time that many climbers come to the region to attempt to summit Mount Everest.

Britains’s Prime Minister, David Cameron was in Brazil, on a trade mission when he was notified of the crash. He told reporters that the U.K. was doing everything it could to help the families of those who died. He told reporters in Rio de Janeiro “It is an absolutely horrific incident and obviously I feel for the families concerned. We will have to find out exactly what happened. It is a deeply, deeply tragic case.”