Kathmandu plane crash latest: at least 50 people killed as passenger plane comes off runway

Hatty Collier12 March 2018

At least 50 air passengers have died after a passenger plane came off the runway during landing at Kathmandu airport.

A further twenty-three people were injured when the US-Bangla Airlines plane crashed at Tribhuvan International Airport.

An army spokesman told Reuters that 50 people were killed when the US-Bangla Airlines plane carrying 67 passengers, including two children, and four crew went down.

Pictures showed a massive plume of smoke rising from the ground after the plane crashed skidded off the runway and into a football pitch near the airport.

Kathmandu Plane Crash - In pictures

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The huge cloud of smoke could be seen for miles after the plane caught fire following the crash at the Nepal airport at about 2.20pm on Monday.

Plane passengers are feared dead after a crash at Kathmandu airport
@shradhagb

Images showed the plane broken into several pieces with dozens of firefighters and rescue workers clustered around the wreckage.

A photo taken from on board another plane at the airport after the crash
@shradha

Amanda Summers, an American who works in Nepal, watched the crash happen from the terrace of her home office.

"It was flying so low I thought it was going to run into the mountains," she said. She said it was unclear if it had reached the runway when it landed. "All of a sudden there was a blast and then another blast," she said.

Fire crews put out the flames very quickly, perhaps within a minute, she said, though clouds of thick, dark smoke rose into the sky above Kathmandu, the capital of the Himalayan nation.

The airport has been closed while emergency services respond. The airport's rescue team and military personnel were deployed.

One witness, who was seated on another plane at the airport that was about to take off, told the Standard: "We had done boarding to take off locally and then a 70-seater plane was approaching and everyone in our plane started to look towards it and there was smoke."

Nepalese rescuers stand near a passenger plane from Bangladesh that crashed at the airport in Kathmandu, Nepal
AP

Director General of Nepal's Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal, Sanjiiv Gautam told the Kathmandu Post that the plane lost control when it attempted to land on the runway.

“The aircraft was permitted to land from the Southern side of the runway flying over Koteshwor but it landed from the Northern side,” he said suspecting the aircraft might have sustained some technical glitches.

Smoke billows into the air after a plane crashed off the runway at Kathmandu airport
Twitter

“We are yet to ascertain the reason behind the unusual landing,” he added.

US-Bangla is a private Bangladeshi carrier. The flight was arriving at the airport from Dhaka, Bangladesh.

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