Kathmandu: A Bangladeshi airliner with 71 people on board crashed and burst into flames while landing in Kathmandu on Monday, killing 49 people and injuring more than 20 others on Monday. The US-Bangla Airlines flight from Dhaka swerved repeatedly as it descended towards Tribhuvan International Airport, witnesses said. The plane crashed during a second attempt to land after an unexpected turn in cloudy weather, they added.
The Bombardier Dash 8 aircraft came down east of the runway and careened into a football field. Rescue teams had to cut apart the mangled and burned wreckage of the upturned plane to pull people out. “Forty people died at the spot and nine died in hospital,” police spokesman Manoj Neupane said, adding another 22 were being treated in hospital, some in a critical condition.
A statement from airport authorities said the plane was “out of control” as it came in to land. The authorities also told a news conference the pilot descended from a route opposite to the one assigned by air traffic controllers.
The twin-engine turboprop airliner was carrying 67 passengers and four crew members, said airport spokesman Prem Nath Thakur. The two pilots and two cabin crew were Bangladeshi nationals. The passengers included 33 from Nepal, 32 from Bangladesh, and one each from China and the Maldives. Local media reported some of the Nepalese passengers were college students returning from a holiday. There was also a group of 16 Nepalese travel agents in the aircraft.
Huge plumes of smoke were seen over the airport after the plane crashed and caught fire.
Officials said the air traffic controllers repeatedly asked the pilot why he had changed the alignment and route assigned to him for approaching the airport but there was no response. The conversation between the air traffic controllers and the pilot, which was made public, suggested the pilot ignored instructions from the ground.
Raj Kumar Chettri, general manager of the airport, said the aircraft was permitted to land from the southern side of the runway but it changed direction and attempted to land from northern side. “This was main reason behind the accident,” he said. “In our preliminary findings, the aircraft might have sustained some technical glitches but we are yet to ascertain the reason behind the unusual landing.”
