DOZENS KILLED IN PLANE CRASH
A plane carrying 71 people from Bangladesh swerved erratically and flew dangerously low before crashing and erupting in flames as it landed Monday at Tribhuvan International Airport in Katmandu, Nepal’s capital, killing at least 50 people, officials and witnesses said. A top airport official said the pilot of US-Bangla Airlines Flight BS211 did not follow landing instructions from the control tower and approached the airport’s one runway from the wrong direction. “The airplane was not properly aligned with the runway. The tower repeatedly asked if the pilot was OK and the reply was ‘yes,’ ” said Raj Kumar Chetri, the airport’s general manager. But a recording of the conversations between the pilot and air traffic controllers indicated confusion over which direction the plane should land. The exact number of dead and injured remained unclear amid the chaos of the crash and the rush to get badly injured people to nearby hospitals.