NEPAL- At least 49 people have been killed when the plane they were travelling on approached the runway from the wrong direction, crashed and burst into flames while landing at Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan Airport in Nepal on Monday.
Earlier reports suggested that 50 people were killed but Bangladesh police spokesperson Manjoi Neupan has confirmed the number stands at 49.
He added, that 40 bodies were recovered at the scene, 9 others died in hospital. There are 22 survivors who are receiving treatment after the plane crashed at 2:15pm local time.
Amanda Sander’s a retired American living in Kathmandu told CNN what she saw from her rooftop.
She said, “I was on my rooftop that overlooks Kathmandu from the top of the valley, I spent most of my time there, when I saw the flying at a very low altitude.
“I saw one spark, or flash. Then seconds later I saw another bigger one. It was almost as if the plane might have bounced. Then no more light but a tall billow of thick black smoke rose in the air,”
Shradha Giri, who was at the airport waiting for a domestic flight, told CNN that, “We had done boarding, waiting to take off and then a 70-seater ATR plane was approaching to land and everyone in our plane started to look towards it. And then 30 second later there was smoke.”
Tribhuvan International Airport general manager Raj Kumar Chhetri said the plane approached the runway from the wrong direction, he said,
“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.”
Photo Credit- CBS
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