A US-Bangla Airlines Flt BS211, a DHC-8-Q400 (S2-AGU) has crashed on landing at Kathmandu's Tribhuvan International Airport in Nepal, during a thunderstorm killing 49 of the 71 aboard.
Read: World's Safest Airlines 2018
The flight was arriving from Dhaka, Bangladesh with 67 passengers and 4 crew, and was on final approach to runway 02 and cleared to land.
According to Aviation Safety.net, "the approach was aborted and the flight crew radioed that they were performing a right-hand orbit.
Initially, the air traffic controller replied that they could not land in the opposite direction (runway 20) because of other traffic on finals.
The controller requested approaching traffic to hold and asked flight 211 if they wanted to land on runway 02 or 20. The flight crew replied: "we like to land on two-zero".
The flight was then cleared to land on runway 20 with wind reported at 260 degrees, 6 knots. Initially, the flight crew did not have the runway in sight, but the flight then radioed: "Affirmative, we have […] runway in sight, requesting to land, Sir".
The flight was again cleared to land. The pilot read back: "cleared to land runway 02", though clearance had been given for runway 20 initially. The air traffic controller then also read back the clearance for runway 02.
Shortly afterward the aircraft impacted terrain and burst into flames
The aircraft impacted the ground at about 14:25L (0835Z), and ATC stopped all traffic in and out of Kathmandu and sent arriving aircraft into holds reporting an aircraft accident.
US-Bangla Airlines commenced operations with domestic flights on in 2014.
It is a subsidiary of US-Bangla Group, a United States-Bangladesh joint venture company.
Initially, the airline launched two domestic destinations, Chittagong and Jessore from its hub in Dhaka.
Today, it serves 15 destinations with seven aircraft.
It has long-term expansion plans that include buying Boeing 777s.
Have questions or want to share your thoughts?
.jpg)
