Plane was heading from Langkawi island to Selangor’s Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport near Kuala Lumpur.
At least 10 people have been killed after a small private aircraft crashed on a highway on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.
All eight people on board were killed in addition to two on the ground when the jet crashed into a motorbike and a car on Thursday while attempting to land in Malaysia’s central Selangor state.
A Beechcraft Model 390 (Premier 1) aircraft, a light private chartered plane, was carrying six passengers and two crew members when it crashed near Elmina township, just before it was due to land, Selangor police chief Hussein Omar Khan told reporters.
The drivers of a motorcycle and a car that were hit by the plane, which had lost contact with the air traffic control tower and smashed into the highway, also died, he said.
“There was no emergency call, the aircraft had been given clearance to land,” Khan said.
The country’s civil aviation authority, CAAM, said the flight had departed from the island of Langkawi and was en route to Selangor’s Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport near Kuala Lumpur.
Transport Minister Anthony Loke said that just minutes before landing, it veered off its flight path and plunged to the ground in Shah Alam district.
The national Bernama news agency quoted witnesses saying the aeroplane exploded upon impact.
The bodies were taken to a hospital to be identified, Loke said at a news conference.
He said officials were searching the area and looking for the plane’s black box to determine the cause of the accident.
Malaysia’s history of plane crashes
In September 1977, a Japan Airlines plane bound for Singapore crashed near the site of Thursday’s disaster. Forty-five people survived and 34 were killed.
On March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew. The Boeing 777 had left Kuala Lumpur for Beijing but lost contact which air traffic controllers as it crossed the South China Sea.
In July 2014, a Malaysia Airlines plane crashed in Ukraine, near the Russian border. Ukraine and Russia are scheduled to face off at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) after pro-Russian forces allegedly shot down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, killing all 298 passengers and crew.
