At least 49 people were killed when a plane approached the runway from the wrong direction, crashed and burst into flames while landing at Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan Airport in Nepal on Monday
Flight BS 211, which belongs to US-Bangla Airlines, a privately owned Bangladeshi carrier, was flying from Dhaka, Bangladesh, police spokesperson Manoj Neupane said.
There were 71 passengers on the plane, including the crew, said Kamrul Islam, the head of public relations for US-Bangla.
The passengers were mainly Nepalese and Bangladeshi with one from China and one from the Maldives, Tribhuvan Airport general manager Raj Kumar Chhetri told CNN. All four crew members were from Bangladesh, officials said.
The plane approached the runway from the wrong direction, according to Chhetri.
“The plane had permission to land from the southern side of the runway but they instead landed from the northern side. Authorities do not know why they did not land from the southern side,” Chhetri said.
The aircraft’s two recorders — the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder — have both been recovered.
Nepal’s recently elected Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli visited the crash site to take stock of the situation.