PLANE CRASH IN KATHMANDU, 50 FEARED DEAD.

Dozens of people have been killed in a plane crash at an airport in Kathmandu, Nepal on Monday. 

The flight from Dhaka, Bangladesh, landed at the Tribhuvan International Airport in  Nepal but ended up careening off the runway and crashing, bursting into flames. 

Nepal army spokesman, Brig. Gen. Gokul Bhandari, said 50 people had died and the fate of the others was unknown.

'All of a sudden the plane shook violently and there was a loud bang,' one of the survivors, Basanta Bohora, told the Kathmandu Post daily. 

'I was seated near a window and was able to break out of the window.' 

The cause of the crash was not immediately clear, but a statement from airport authorities said the plane was 'out of control' as it came into land.

Eyewitnesses said the plane, a Canadian-made Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 turboprop, crashed as it made a second attempt to land. 

'There might be technical problems on the aircraft. But it has to be probed before making a final statement,' Mahbubur Rahman of Bangladesh's civil aviation ministry said. 

Earlier in the day, a police official said at least 38 people had died, 23 had been injured and ten were unaccounted for.

Several passengers rescued are reported to have later died in hospital.

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

Emergency vehicles appeared to be heading into the smoke as people watched from a distance or filmed on their mobile phones.

Amanda Summers, an American who works in Nepal, watched the crash happen from the terrace of her home office.

'It was flying so low I thought it was going to run into the mountains,' she said. She said it was unclear if it had reached the runway when it landed. 

'All of a sudden there was a blast and then another blast,' she said.

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. 

NEWS. Mirror.co.uk