Biman Bangladesh plane skids off runway at Myanmar's Yangon airport

A Biman Bangladesh Airlines plane came off the runway as it landed in bad weather at Yangon's international airport on Wednesday evening, injuring at least 17 people and seriously damaging the aircraft, officials said. The Bombardier Dash 8 aircraft was carrying 29 passengers and four crew when it skidded off the runway while landing in Myanmar's commercial capital, Bangladesh's ambassador to Myanmar said.

There were no major injuries but 17 people were admitted to a hospital near the airport, the ambassador, Manjurul Karim Khan Chowdhury, told Reuters. Corporal Zaw Min Oo of the Myanmar fire department said at least a dozen men and four women were being treated at the hospital.

A photo published by the Myanmar Times showed the plane halfway off the runway with its fuselage apparently broken. "The aircraft skidded off the runway amid bad weather," the airline's general manager, Shakil Miraj, told Reuters by phone.

A spokesman for Myanmar's Department of Civil Aviation declined to comment, saying the department had not received a report of the incident from the ground. Bangladesh's Biman flies between Myanmar's largest city, Yangon, and Bangladesh's capital Dhaka four days a week. (Reporting by Thu Thu Aung in Yangon and Ruma Paul in Dhaka Writing by Simon Lewis Editing by Frances Kerry)