Kathmandu, Mar 12: A US-Bangla Airlines passenger plane carrying 71 people crashed on Monday while coming in to land at the airport in the Nepali capital, Kathmandu, an airport official said.
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.
Live footage posted on Facebook showed the towering columns of smoke rising behind the runway, where another plane stood waiting on the tarmac.
The Nepal Army has been pressed into rescue operations and the airport has been closed.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of airport policy, said the flight was arriving from Dhaka, the Bangladesh capital. He said the plane appeared to have caught fire just before it landed and skidded to a stop in a field beside the runway.
An employee who answered the phone at the US-Bangla offices in Dhaka said no one was available to talk.
"I have no other details," said the employee, who refused to give his name. "But a bad incident has happened."
Emergency vehicles appeared to be heading into the smoke as people watched from a distance or filmed on their mobile phones.
Nepal has suffered a number of air disasters in recent years, dealing a blow to its tourist industry.
Its poor air safety record has been blamed largely on inadequate maintenance, inexperienced pilots, and substandard management.
In early 2016, a Twin Otter turboprop aircraft slammed into a mountainside in Nepal killing all 23 people on board. Two days later, two pilots were killed when a small passenger plane crash-landed in the country's hilly midwest.
US-Bangla Airlines is a unit of the US-Bangla Group, a U.S. Bangladeshi joint venture company. The Bangladeshi carrier launched operations in July 2014 and operates Bombardier Inc and Boeing aircraft.
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