A Dornier aircraft of Sita Airlines made an emergency landing at Tribhuvan International Airport with a single engine on Thursday after one of its two engines failed.

The left engine of the plane inbound from Tenzing-Hillary Airport in Lukla at 12:09 pm today experienced the failure seven minutes after take-off. TIA Spokesperson Premnath Thakurinformed pilot Deepak Kumar Shah informed Lukla air traffic controller about the failure and decided to fly to Kathmandu with the other engine.

“The left engine of the plane was shut down and it flew with the other functional engine and made a smooth landing,” said Thakur.

The airlines said pilot Shah had asked for technical support after problems in the oil pressure of left engine was detected by the planes indicators in Lukla. “We flew the plane to Kathmandu as per the suggestions by a technical team which flew to Lukla on a chopper,” said one airlines official. He said the left engine of the plane was shut and a ferry flight—flight done to return to base— was conducted to Kathmandu to fix the problem on the left engine.

There were seven persons—three crew members and four technicians—on the plane. The airlines said it would replace the problematic engine on Friday.