KATHMANDU: The Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) witnessed a high voltage drama on Saturday night after passengers arriving through a flight of Silk Air from Singapore were not allowed to disembark for over three hours.

TIA had refused to disembark the passengers as the flight was carrying Europeans. The government has barred foreigners from European countries to arrive in Nepal over COVID-19 fears.

However, authorities allowed them to disembark three hours after landing after finding out that they were of Nepali origin.

The aircraft had landed at TIA at 8 pm.

Nepal has closed all international flights from March 22 to March 31 and barred entry of all foreigners.

The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) has, however, clarified that only the arrival of passenger flights will be impacted by the government’s decision to suspend all international flights.

Departing passenger flight from Nepal, freighter flight, rescue and air ambulance flight and other emergency flight will not be affected by this decision, CAAN said in a statement.