US-Bangla Airlines plane crashes in Kathmandu

A Bangladeshi plane with 67 passengers on board crashed near Kathmandu airport Monday as it was coming in to land, officials said, as firefighters battled to extinguish the burning wreckage and rescue passengers.

The airlines officials in Dhaka said the plane took off from Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport at 12:51pm with 67 passengers and four crew.

Victims' bodies have been recovered from the wreckage of the plane.

‘We just pulled out dead bodies and injured from the debris,’ Nepal government spokesman Narayan Prasad Duwadi told AFP.

Plumes of black smoke could be seen rising from the football pitch where the plane crashed, to the east of the runway at Nepal's only international airport, in the capital Kathmandu.

‘There were 67 passengers and 4 crew members’ aboard the plane, said airport spokesman Prem Nath Thakur.

‘So far 20 injured have been taken to the hospital. Police and army are trying to cut apart the plane to rescue others,’ he added.

There were 37 males, 27 females and two children onboard the aircraft. Among them 40 were Bangladeshi, 25 were Nepali, one from China and one from Maldives, said Quamrul Islam, general manager of US-Bangla Airlines.

Live footage posted on Facebook showed the towering columns of smoke rising behind the runway, where another plane stood waiting on the tarmac.

Emergency vehicles appeared to be heading into the smoke as people watched from a distance or filmed on their mobile phones.

Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh is having close contact with Nepali authorities and they are collecting detail reports, said Mahbubur Rahman Tuhin civil aviation ministry spokesperson.

Photos posted on various social networking sites shot smoke billowing from the airport.

BBC Bangla Service reported Nepali officials told them that they saw passengers rushing out of the plane and a number of passengers got injuries.

State minister for foreign affairs M Shahriar Alam said officials from Bangladesh mission in Kathmandu are already on the spot and hospital.

He said they need to wait few moments to get specific information but he is, after analyzing information he has got so far, hoping that most of the passengers are alive. ‘But it will take couple of more hours to get concrete information.’

 Bangladesh mission in Nepal opened a hotline - Md. Al alamul Emam (Consular +9779810100401) and Asit Baran Sarker (+9779861467422).

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net