TEHRAN, March 12 - Forty-nine people were killed when a Bangladeshi plane crashed and burst into flames near Kathmandu airport on Monday, in the worst aviation disaster to hit Nepal in nearly three decades.
TEHRAN,Young Journalists Club (YJC) - Officials said there were 71 people on board the US-Bangla Airlines plane from Dhaka when it crashed just east of the runway and skidded into a nearby football field.
Rescuers cut apart the mangled and burned wreckage of the upturned aircraft to pull people out, while other passengers were found buried under debris that scattered as the plane hit the ground.
"Forty people died at the spot and nine died at two hospitals in Kathmandu," police spokesman Manoj Neupane told AFP, adding another 22 were being treated in hospital, some in a critical condition.
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.
Meanwhile, the CEO of US-Bangla Airlines Imran Asif laid blame on Kathmandu's air traffic control, saying the controller "fumbled" the landing.
"Our pilot is an instructor of this Bombardier aircraft. His flight hours are over 5,000 hours. There was a fumble from the control tower," Asif told reporters outside the airline's offices in Dhaka.
An airport source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there may have been confusion between air traffic control and the pilot over which end of Kathmandu's sole runway -- referred to as 'Runway 02' and 'Runway 20' -- the plane was meant to land on.
A recording purportedly of the conversation between the controller and pilot has been published online. AFP could not independently verify the recording.
Eyewitnesses said the plane -- a Canadian-made Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 turboprop -- crashed as it made a second approach towards the airport, shuddering violently as it lost height before hitting the ground and bursting into flames.
"It should have come straight but it went in the other direction," said airport cleaner Sushil Chaudhary, who saw the crash.
"I was worried it would hit another aircraft, but the pilot pulled the plane up. But then it crashed towards the field."
Source: AFP
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