BD reckons Nepal plane crash toll as probe starts

The authorities started probing Monday's plane disaster as death toll soared to 51 on Tuesday.

Bangladesh government counted 26 Bangladeshis, including the four crew members, among the dead after the plane crash, an embassy official said.

A day after Bangladesh's worst airline disaster, the Bangladesh embassy in Kathmandu released the list of the casualties.

It showed that 32 Bangladeshi passengers were on board, 22 of them died in the crash and 10 others were in hospital care.

The document confirmed the deaths of pilot Abid Sultan, co-pilot Prithula Rashid and crew members Khwaja Hussain Md Shafey and Sharmeen Akhter Nabila, clearing confusion over the fate of the airline officials.

Bangladesh Embassy's First Secretary Asit Baran Sarker said a total of 49 people died in the crash.

"The 10 survivors are in critical condition," he told bdnews24.com.

They are Emrana Kabir Hashi, Shahreen Ahmed, Sheikh Rashed Rubayat, Almun Nahar Annie, Mehedi Hasan, Saiyada Kamrunnahar Swarna, Md Kabir Hossain and Md Shahin Bepari.

The two others, Eakub Ali and Md Rezwanul Haque are under treatment at the NORVIC Hospital and OM Hospital respectively, he added.

Mr Sarker said a team of US-Bangla officials, including the CEO, reached Kathmandu Tuesday morning and was involved in the crash probe.

US-Bangla Airlines said it would compensate families of plane crash victims while bearing medical expenses of injured passengers.

The developments came a day after Bangladesh's deadliest aviation disaster involving a four-year-old US-Bangla Airlines aircraft, rocked the region.

With 71 people on board, the plane en route to Kathmandu from Dhaka crashed into a fence of the Tribhuvan International Airport on Monday.

Media reports put the death toll at 51, including pilot Abid Sultan, co-pilot Prithula Rashid and crew member Khwaja Hussain.

Investigators in Kathmandu retrieved the flight data recorder from the wreckage of the Bangladeshi airlines that crash landed while attempting to land in the Nepalese capital.

The airlines and airport authorities in Kathmandu have blamed each other in the aftermath of Monday's aviation disaster, the Himalayan nation's worst since the 1992 crash of a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) aircraft killed 167, according to Reuters.

"The flight data recorder has been recovered, we have kept it safely," said Raj Kumar Chettri, the airport's general manager, adding that an investigation had begun into the cause of the crash.

The Bombardier Q400 series aircraft carrying 71 people left Dhaka when it tried to land in conditions of visibility that weather officials said exceeded 6km, with clouds at one end of the runway and a light tailwind of six to seven knots.

Flight operator US-Bangla Airlines said Captain Abid Sultan, a former pilot of the Bangladesh Air Force, had landed more than 100 times at Kathmandu, where wind shear and bird hits are frequent hazards.

Sultan had more than 5,000 hours of flying experience and was specially trained to land at the airport, said the carrier's spokesman Kamrul Islam.

The airlines also denied a media report that the aircraft had skidded off the runway during a domestic flight in 2015, saying it "never ever encountered any accident. It had no technical glitches."

The civil aviation authorities of Nepal and Bangladesh on Tuesday started working on the data retrieved from the "black box" of the crashed US-Bangla plane, said Mr Islam.

The reasons behind the crash will be known after studying the data recorded in the box, Kamrul Islam, the airliner's general manager, told reporters Tuesday.

"We can't say who is responsible for this tragic accident but this transfer is meaningful," Mr Islam said.

His comments came after six officers stationed at the Air Traffic Control Tower who witnessed the US Bangla air crash in Kathmandu have been shifted to another department to "minimise shock of the accident".

US Bangla will bear all the expenses for the treatment of the injured passengers, Mr Islam said.

"A flight of our airlines has taken 46 relatives of the passengers of the fateful plane to Kathmandu today (Tuesday)," he said, adding the airliners would also bear the expenses for the stay of the relatives in Kathmandu, he said.

The bodies of the killed Bangladeshis would be returned home after completing the formalities in Kathmandu, officials said.

The families of all the passengers would be given due compensation as per insurance coverage, he said.

Meanwhile, a high-level Bangladeshi team including civil aviation and tourism minister A.K.M. Shahjahan Kamal reached Kathmandu Tuesday, a day after the deadly incident.

A US-Bangla plane took off for Kathmandu from Dhaka on Tuesday, carrying seven airline officials and 46 relatives of the passengers.

"Regardless of what contributed to this tragic accident, we are sorry," Asif, the airline's chief executive, wrote on networking website LinkedIn. "And we stand by the bereaved families of those who lost their loved ones."

Meanwhile, a control room was opened at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka to provide necessary information and counselling to the families of the victims of the US-Bangla Airlines plane crash.

Additional secretary to the disaster management and relief ministry Md Mohsin on Tuesday said top officials of the ministry would be performing duty at the control room to provide all kinds of assistance to the victims' families.

The US-Bangla Airlines, a concern of US-Bangla Group, launched operations in July 2014. The company expanded rapidly as air travel grew in the country.

The carrier now covers eight domestic air routes including Chittagong and Cox's Bazar, while travels to eight international destinations such as India's Kolkata and Singapore and Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur.

The fast-growing private carrier also plans to fly to Dubai of the United Arab Emirates and Dammam of Saudi Arabia.

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