Bangladesh plane crashes at Kathmandu airport, 49 dead
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 in the worst aviation disaster to hit Nepal in nearly three decades.
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 crashed east of the runway and careened into a nearby 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 at two hospitals in Kathmandu,” police spokesman Manoj Neupane said, adding another 22 were being treated in hospital, some in a critical condi- tion. The cause of the crash was not immediately clear, but a statement from airport authorities said the plane was “out of control” as it came in to land.
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 Nepalese citizens, 32 from Bangladesh, one from China and one from the Maldives. Local media reported that many of the Nepali passengers were college students returning home for a holiday. Huge plumes of smoke were seen over the airport after the plane crashed at 2.40 pm local time and caught fire. “All of a sudden the plane shook violently and there was a loud bang,” Basanta Bohora, one of the survivors, told Kathmandu Post.
“I was seated near a window and was able to break out of the window.”
The plane “became unstable” while descending, an airport official said. An airport source told AFP there may have been confusion between air traffic control and the pilot over which runway the plane was meant to land on.
Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal director general Sanjiv Gautam said: “The aircraft was permitted to land from the southern side of the runway flying over Koteshwor but it landed from the northern side.”
Noting that the aircraft may have been affected by technical glitches, he added, “We are yet to ascertain the reason behind the unusual landing.”
Amanda Summers, an American who works in Nepal, watched the crash from the terrace of her home office, not far from the airport. “It was flying so low I thought it was going to run into the mountains,” she said. “All of a sudden there was a blast and then another blast,” she added.
Nitin Keyal , a medical student, was about to board a domestic flight when he saw the plane coming in. “It was flying very low,” he said. “Everyone just froze looking at it. You could tell it wasn’t a normal landing.”
He added, “For a few minutes no one could believe what was happening. It was just terrible.”
Flights to Tribhuvan International Airport were diverted after it briefly closed following the crash.
US-Bangla Airlines is owned by US-Bangla Group, a joint venture company with offices in Dhaka, New York, India and other Asian hubs. It has been operating since 2014 out of its home airport in Bangladesh and flies to several domestic and international destinations. The parent company is involved in a number of industries, including real estate, education and agriculture.
The Canadian-made Bombardier Dash 8 was 17 years old. Mahbubur Rahman of Bangladesh’s civil aviation ministry said: “There might be technical problems on the aircraft. But it has to be probed before making a final statement.”
Kathmandu airport is Nepal’s only international airport and experts say the surrounding Himalayan mountains makes it testing for pilots coming in to land. “The landing at Kathmandu because of the terrain is a little challenging,” said Gabriele Ascenzo, a Canadian pilot who runs aviation safety courses in Nepal.
Depending on the direction of approach, pilots have to fly over high terrain before making a steep descent towards the airport, Ascenzo said. The accident was the deadliest since September 1992, when all 167 people aboard a Pakistan International Airlines plane were killed when it crashed as it approached Kathmandu airport. Just two months earlier, a Thai Airways aircraft crashed near the same airport, killing 113 people.
(With agency inputs )