Nepal airport crash kills dozens after plane bursts into flames

A passenger plane that departed from Bangladesh with 71 people aboard crashed and burst into flames, killing dozens of people Monday as it tried to land at the airport in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu.

The death toll wasn’t immediately clear. Army spokesman Brig. Gen. Gokul Bhandari said 50 people were killed, and the Kathmandu Post reported 40 dead.

Passenger Basanta Bohora, who survived the crash, told the Kathmandu Post he was one of 16 Nepalis employed by various travel agencies who traveled to Bangladesh for training and were returning from Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital.

Bohora said he first realized something was wrong when the US-Bangla Airlines twin-propeller Bombardier Dash 8 plane approached the Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu.

“All of a sudden the plane shook violently and there was a loud bang afterwards,” he told the Kathmandu Post. “I was seated near the window and was able to break out the window.”

An Associated Press journalist saw the plane broken into several large pieces. Dozens of firefighters and rescue workers were at the scene.

The plane circled the airport twice as it waited for clearance to land, Mohammed Selim, the airline’s manager in Kathmandu, told Dhaka-based Somoy TV station.

Amanda Summers, an American working in Nepal, saw the crash from her home. “It was flying so low I thought it was going to run into the mountains. All of a sudden there was a blast and then another blast,” she said.

She said firefighters extinguished the flames quickly.