At least 50 killed in Bangladeshi plane crash in Nepal

A Bangladeshi airliner with 71 people on board has crashed while coming in to land at the airport in the Nepali capital, Kathmandu, killing at least 50 people, an army spokesman says. 

“The chances of rescuing anyone else alive is slim now because the plane was badly burned,” AFP quoted army spokesman Gokul Bhandaree as saying Monday.

The US-Bangla Airlines plane, traveling from Dhaka, went off the runway while landing and crashed on the east side of the Tribhuvan International Airport’s runway. It then caught fire.

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

An AP journalist who arrived at the scene soon after the crash said the plane had been broken into several large pieces.