United News of Bangladesh

The wreckage of a plane that crashed with 49 people on board has been located in Russia’s Far Eastern region, local emergency officials reported Thursday. According to Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry, the aircraft’s “burning fuselage” was discovered, though no additional information was released. The An-24 passenger plane, operated by Angara Airlines and based in Siberia, was carrying 43 passengers—including five children—and six crew members. It was en route from Blagoveshchensk, near the Russian-Chinese border, to the town of Tynda, regional Governor Vasily Orlov said. Plane with 49 aboard vanishes from Radar in Russia's Far East The aircraft vanished from radar and lost communication with air traffic control just a few miles before reaching Tynda airport.  

Group Captain Md Ahsan Habib has been withdrawn from his post as Director of Flight Safety and Regulation at the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB). According to an office order issued by the Ministry of Public Administration on Tuesday, he has been sent back to the Bangladesh Air Force. Group Captain Md Monirul Islam has been appointed as his replacement. His service has been placed under the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism. Another child's death raises Uttara jet crash toll to 32 The move comes amid mourning following Monday’s tragic crash of a fighter jet into Milestone School and College in Uttara, which claimed many lives.

An Air India flight bound for London’s Gatwick Airport with 244 people on board has crashed shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad, in northwestern India, according to the airline and local media reports. Television footage showed plumes of smoke rising from the crash site near Ahmedabad airport. The city, home to more than five million residents, witnessed the disaster in a residential area called Meghani Nagar. Faiz Ahmed Kidwai, Director General of the Directorate of Civil Aviation, told The Associated Press that Air India flight AI171, operated by a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, went down just five minutes after departing at 13:38 local time. Onboard were 232 passengers and 12 crew members. Gatwick Airport later confirmed via social media that the flight, scheduled to arrive in London at 18:25, had crashed shortly after takeoff. All flights suspended at Ahmedabad Airport following Air India crash India’s Civil Aviation Minister, Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu, announced on X that emergency teams have been deployed and that medical assistance and relief efforts are ongoing. “We are on highest alert. I am personally monitoring the situation,” he said. This incident marks the first crash involving a Boeing 787 Dreamliner since its introduction in 2009. More than 1,000 of these widebody, twin-engine aircraft have been delivered worldwide, according to Aviation Safety Network and Flightradar24. Air India Chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran expressed the airline’s condolences and said the airline’s priority is to support those affected. In a post on X, he confirmed that an emergency response centre and support team have been established to assist families seeking information. “Our thoughts and deepest condolences are with the families and loved ones of all those affected by this devastating event,” he added.

A small plane crash in a remote region of South Sudan on Wednesday resulted in the deaths of at least 18 people, an official confirmed. According to Gatwech Bipal, the minister of information in Unity state, the flight was chartered by the Chinese oil company Greater Pioneer Operating Company and had 21 people on board, including two pilots. The crash occurred as the plane was taking off near an oil field, preparing to head toward Juba’s international airport. Some 70 people killed in attack on hospital in Sudan's Darfur region, WHO chief says The cause of the crash remains unknown, and authorities have yet to disclose the identities of the victims. Local media reports suggest that oil workers were among those on board.

Two people died and 18 were injured Thursday when a small plane crashed through the roof of a sprawling furniture manufacturing building in Southern California where at least 200 people were working, police said. The identities of the people who died, and whether they were in the plane or on the ground, was not yet known, said Kristy Wells, a Fullerton police spokesperson. The plane crashed less than two minutes after taking off from the Fullerton Municipal Airport in Orange County, located just six miles (10 kilometers) from Disneyland, according to the flight-tracking website FlightAware. Security camera footage from Rucci Forged, a wheel manufacturer across the street, shows the plane was tilted on its side as it dove into the building, causing a fiery explosion and black plume of smoke. Firefighters and police arrived on scene and battled the blaze and evacuated surrounding businesses, Wells said. Chris Villalobos, an airport operations worker, came to the warehouse to see what had happened after receiving a phone call about a plane going down nearby. He said the owner of the aircraft was a regular at the airport and has frequently taken off from there. Read: SKorea to inspect Boeing as it struggles to find cause of plane crash “He has a hangar here and everything,” Villalobos said. Villalobos said that after taking off, the pilot told air traffic control he was going to turn around to make an emergency landing, but it was unclear what the issue with the plane was. The building was occupied by Michael Nicholas Designs, a furniture upholstery manufacturer, according to a sign on a door, and there appeared to be sewing machines and textile stock inside. Ten people were taken to the hospital, while eight were treated and released at the scene, police said. There were two confirmed deaths, according to Wells. The Federal Aviation Administration said the plane was a single-engine Van's RV-10, a four-seat aircraft. The airport in Fullerton has one runway and a heliport. Metrolink, a regional train line, is nearby and flanks a residential neighborhood and commercial warehouse buildings. Read more: Kazakhstan Reports 42 Feared Dead in Azerbaijan Airlines Plane Crash Another four-seat plane crashed into a tree a half-mile from the airport last November while making an emergency landing right after takeoff, the Orange County Register reported. Both people on board suffered moderate injuries. Fullerton is a city of about 140,000 people some 25 miles (40 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles.

Grieving relatives of the victims of the South Korea plane crash gathered at the site to pay respects to their loved ones on New Year’s Day, as officials said they've extracted data from one of the retrieved black boxes to find the exact cause of the crash. All but two of the 181 passengers and crew on board the Boeing 737-800 operated by Jeju Air died when it crashed at Muan International Airport, in southern South Korea, on Sunday. Video showed the aircraft without its landing gear deployed landing on its belly at high speed and then skidding off the end of the runaway into a concrete fence and bursting into flames. The footage showed the plane was experiencing an apparent engine problem in addition to the landing gear malfunction. Investigators say the pilot received a warning from air traffic controllers of possible bird strikes and the plane issued a distress signal before the crash. The Transport Ministry said in a statement Wednesday that it has completed works to extract data from the cockpit voice recorder — one of the two black boxes recovered from the wreckage. It said the data would be converted into audio files. A damaged flight data recorder will be sent to the United States for an analysis, the ministry added. All of the victims were South Korean, except for two Thais nationals, with many returning from Bangkok after Christmas holidays. Romania and Bulgaria celebrate full Schengen membership with ceremonies The bereaved families visited the site on Wednesday for the first time since the crash for an emotional memorial service. They were bused to the site where they took turns laying white flowers. Many knelt and bowed deeply before a memorial table laid with food, including “ddeokguk,” a Korean rice cake soup eaten on New Year's Day. The Transport Ministry said authorities have completed the complicated process of identifying all 179 victims. It said the government has so far handed over 11 bodies to relatives. The country is observing seven days of national mourning following the deadliest disaster in South Korea’s aviation history in decades. The government has begun safety inspections of all 101 Boeing 737-800s operated by the country's domestic airlines. On Tuesday, a team of U.S. investigators, including representatives from Boeing, examined the crash site. 10 killed, 30 injured as car drives into crowd in New Orleans Officials have said they will consider whether the airport’s localizer — a set of antennas housed in a concrete fence at the end of the runway designed to guide aircraft during landings — should have been constructed with lighter materials that would break more easily upon impact.

South Korea will conduct safety inspections of all Boeing 737-800 aircraft operated by the country’s airlines following a deadly crash on Sunday that killed 179 people. The crash, which is South Korea’s worst aviation disaster in decades, has raised national concerns as the government struggles to address the situation amid a leadership vacuum. New acting President Choi Sang-mok led a task force meeting on Monday, instructing authorities to review the country’s aircraft operations systems. “The essence of a responsible response would be renovating the aviation safety systems on the whole to prevent recurrences of similar incidents and building a safer Republic of South Korea,” Choi, also the finance minister, said. The Boeing 737-800, operated by Jeju Air, had aborted its first landing attempt for unclear reasons. During its second attempt, it received a bird strike warning before the pilot issued a distress signal. The plane landed without its front landing gear deployed, overshot the runway, hit a concrete fence, and burst into flames. Alan Price, a former chief pilot at Delta Air Lines, stated the Boeing 737-800 is a “proven airplane,” unlike the Boeing 737 Max, which was linked to fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019. South Korea's Transport Ministry announced it would inspect all 101 Boeing 737-800s in the country, focusing on Jeju Air, which operates 39 of these planes. Representatives from the US National Transportation Safety Board and Boeing are set to join the investigation. Officials are also reviewing the design of Muan airport's localizer, a concrete fence with antennas meant to guide planes during landings. The Transport Ministry confirmed similar structures exist at other airports in South Korea, as well as in the US, Spain, and South Africa. Warrant to detain impeached South Korean President Yoon sought Video footage of the crash indicated a possible hydraulic failure, with the pilots failing to deploy flaps or slats to slow the plane. Retired pilot John Cox said the aircraft was still under control, and the close proximity of the barrier likely worsened the damage. Another Jeju Air 737-800 experienced a landing gear issue earlier on Monday but returned to Seoul as a precaution. Authorities are also investigating potential communication problems between the pilot and air traffic controllers during the crash. The crash, which is South Korea’s deadliest since 1997, has prompted a seven-day national mourning period. The Transport Ministry has identified 146 bodies and continues to collect DNA and fingerprint samples from the remaining 33 victims.

A jetliner skidded off a runway, slammed into a concrete fence and burst into flames Sunday in South Korea after its landing gear apparently failed to deploy. All but two of the 181 people aboard were killed in one of the country’s worst aviation disasters, officials said. The Boeing 737-800 operated by Jeju Air plane arrived from Bangkok and crashed while attempting to land in the town of Muan, about 290 kilometers (180 miles) south of Seoul. Footage of the crash aired by South Korean television showed the plane skidding across the airstrip at high speed, evidently with its landing gear still closed, and slamming into the wall, triggering an explosion and generating plumes of thick, black smoke. The crash killed 179 people, the South Korean fire agency said. Emergency workers pulled two crew members to safety. They were conscious and did not appear to have any life-threatening injuries, health officials said. The chief of the Muan fire station, Lee Jeong-hyeon, told a televised briefing that the plane was completely destroyed, with only the tail assembly still recognizable in the wreckage. Officials were investigating the cause of the crash, including whether the aircraft was struck by birds, Lee said. The control tower issued a warning about birds to the plane shortly before it intended to land and gave the crew permission to land in a different area, Transport Ministry officials said. The crew sent out a distress signal shortly before the crash, officials said. Investigators retrieved the jet's flight data and cockpit voice recorders, said senior Transport Ministry official Joo Jong-wan. He said it may take months to complete the probe into the crash. The runway will be closed until Jan. 1, the ministry said. Video of the crash indicated that the pilots did not deploy flaps or slats to slow the aircraft, suggesting a possible hydraulic failure, and they did not manually lower the landing gear, suggesting they did not have time, said John Cox, a retired airline pilot and CEO of Safety Operating Systems in St. Petersburg, Florida. Despite that, the jetliner was under control and traveling in a straight line, and damage and injuries likely would have been minimized if not for a barrier being so close to the runway, Cox said. “It’s all in one piece. Everything is coming along fine until it hits that wall, at which point it disintegrates into a catastrophe,” he said.   Another aviation expert said videos showed the aircraft had used up much of the runway before touching down. With little braking ability, the aircraft skidded atop its engine cowlings, said Ross “Rusty” Aimer, CEO of Aero Consulting Experts. “It's basically like skidding on ice,” he said. The Boeing 737-800 is a "proven airplane" that belongs to a different class of aircraft than the Boeing 737 Max jetliner that was linked to fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019, added Alan Price, a former chief pilot at Delta Air Lines and now a consultant. More than 4,500 of the planes are in service around the world, according to the aviation analytics company Cirium. One of the survivors was being treated for fractures to his ribs, shoulder blade and upper spine, said Ju Woong, director of the Ewha Womans University Seoul Hospital. Ju said the man, whose name was not released, told doctors he “woke up to find (himself) rescued.” Details on the other survivor were not immediately available. The passengers were predominantly South Korean and included two people from Thailand. Officials identified 88 of them in the hours after the crash, the fire agency said. Thailand’s prime minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, expressed condolences to the families of those aboard the plane in a post on X. Paetongtarn said she ordered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to provide assistance. Boonchuay Duangmanee, the father of a Thai passenger, told The Associated Press that his daughter, Jongluk, had been working in a factory in South Korea for several years and returned to Thailand to visit her family. Putin apologizes for 'tragic incident' but stops short of saying Azerbaijani plane shot down "I never thought that this would be the last time we would see each other forever,” he said. Kerati Kijmanawat, the director of Thailand's airports, confirmed in a statement that Jeju Air flight 7C 2216 departed from Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport with no reports of anything abnormal aboard the aircraft or on the runway. Jeju Air in a statement expressed its “deep apology” over the crash and said it will do its “utmost to manage the aftermath of the accident.” In a televised news conference, the company's president, Kim E-bae, bowed deeply with other senior company officials as he apologized to bereaved families and said he feels “full responsibility” for the crash. He said the company had not identified any mechanical problems with the aircraft following regular checkups and that he would wait for the results of government investigations. Family members wailed as officials announced the names of some victims at a lounge in the Muan airport. Boeing said in a statement on X that it was in contact with Jeju Air and was ready to support the company in dealing with the crash. The crash happened as South Korea is embroiled in a political crisis triggered by President Yoon Suk Yeol’s stunning imposition of martial law and ensuing impeachment. South Korean lawmakers on Friday impeached acting President Han Duck-soo and suspended his duties, leading Deputy Prime Minister Choi Sang-mok to take over. Choi, who traveled to the site in Muan, called for officials to use all available resources to identify the dead as soon as possible. The government declared Muan a special disaster zone and designated a weeklong national mourning period. Ukrainian drone attack linked to Azerbaijani plane crash, says Russian aviation chief Yoon’s office said his chief secretary, Chung Jin-suk, presided over an emergency meeting between senior presidential staff to discuss the crash and reported the details to Choi. Yoon expressed condolences to the victims in a Facebook post. In Rome’s St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis said he joined in “prayer for the survivors and the dead.” U.S. President Joe Biden said the United States was ready to offer “any necessary assistance.” The Muan crash is one of the deadliest disasters in South Korea’s aviation history. The last time South Korea suffered a large-scale air disaster was in 1997, when a Korean Airlines plane crashed in Guam, killing 228 people on board. In 2013, an Asiana Airlines plane crash-landed in San Francisco, killing three and injuring about 200. Sunday’s accident was also one of the worst landing disasters since a July 2007 crash that killed all 187 people on board and 12 others on the ground when an Airbus A320 slid off a slick airstrip in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and hit a nearby building, according to data compiled by the Flight Safety Foundation, a nonprofit group aimed at improving air safety. In 2010, 158 people died when an Air India Express aircraft overshot a runway in Mangalore, India, and plummeted into a gorge before erupting into flames, according to the safety foundation.

Russia’s aviation chief, Dmitry Yadrov, has stated that a Ukrainian drone attack was underway in the Russian region where an Azerbaijani airliner was originally destined before it diverted and crashed earlier this week.  The Azerbaijan Airlines flight, en route from Baku to Grozny, the Chechen capital, changed course toward Kazakhstan and crashed during an attempted landing, killing 38 people and injuring all 29 survivors. Azerbaijani lawmaker Rasim Musabekov and some aviation experts have suggested Russian air defenses may have been involved, though Yadrov did not address these claims.  Azerbaijan Airlines blamed the crash on unspecified “physical and technical interference” and suspended flights to several Russian airports without elaborating further. Survivors reported hearing loud noises on the plane over Grozny. Flight attendant Aydan Rahimli recounted, “After one loud noise, the oxygen masks automatically released.” Another crew member, Zulfugar Asadov, said the sounds seemed to come from outside the plane.  Rashad Nabiyev, Azerbaijan’s minister of digital development and transportation, said the aircraft suffered external damage while flying over Grozny. “The type of weapon used in the impact will be determined by investigators,” he told Azerbaijani media.  Kazakhstan Reports 42 Feared Dead in Azerbaijan Airlines Plane Crash Musabekov claimed the plane was fired on over Grozny and demanded an apology from Russia. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov declined to comment, stating, “The air incident is being investigated, and we don’t believe we have the right to make any assessments until conclusions are reached.”  Yadrov noted the plane encountered heavy fog while attempting to land in Grozny, where Ukrainian drones were reportedly targeting the area, prompting airspace closure. After two failed landing attempts, the captain opted to divert to Aktau, Kazakhstan. “The situation in the area of Grozny airport was quite difficult,” Yadrov said.  Experts have pointed to damage in the plane’s tail suggesting possible fire from Russian air defenses. Investigators from Azerbaijan are collaborating in Grozny.  Azerbaijan Airlines and other carriers, including FlyDubai and El Al, have suspended or adjusted flights to Russian cities amid ongoing concerns about airspace safety.Source: With inputs from wires

An Azerbaijan Airlines plane has crashed in the Kazakhstani city of Aktau, with Kazakhstan’s emergency ministry stating that 42 people are feared dead. In a statement released on Telegram on Wednesday, the ministry reported that the aircraft had 67 people on board, including five crew members. Preliminary assessments indicate that 25 passengers survived the crash, with 22 of them hospitalised. 21 dead as Mozambique erupts in violence after election court ruling Azerbaijan Airlines confirmed that the Embraer 190 jet made an emergency landing at Aktau airport.