Videos Show Plane Crashed in Field After Overshooting Runway

At least eight people were injured after a Myanmar military plane arriving to airlift its soldiers out of India overshot the runway at Lengpui Airport in the state capital of Mizoram on Tuesday, officials said.

The injured were among 14 people on board, who were there to collect the soldiers who had fled into India last week, Indian police and military officials told news agency Reuters.

Video footage and still images showed the stricken plane nose down in thick vegetation. The fuselage appeared to be misshapen, with damage to the middle of the aircraft.

India Today, a weekly English-language Indian news magazine, shared photographs from the scene on social-media site X (formerly Twitter).

The accompanying caption read: "A Myanmar military plane met with an accident on January 23 after landing at #Lengpui Airport in Mizoram. As per sources, the military plane came from Myanmar to airlift the soldiers who had crossed the Indo-#Myanmar border and entered Mizoram last week."

India-based independent journalist Jon Suante posted footage of the aftermath of the crash on X. He described how the plane had "skidded" off the runway.

The plane crashed while it was attempting to land in the Indian state at around 10:20 a.m. local time (11:50 p.m. ET on Monday), officials said. The eight injured victims were crew members, including the pilot, and four of them were in a critical condition, according to the Times of India. The wounded were all transported to Lengpui Hospital, the newspaper's report added.

"All flights to Aizawl (Lengpui) airport have been diverted after [the] Myanmar military plane crash," a Mizoram government official was quoted as saying, adding that India's aviation regulator—the Directorate General of Civil Aviation—has now launched an investigation into the cause of the crash.

Hundreds of troops have fled from Myanmar seeking refuge in Mizoram. They were trying to escape from their home country, which was subject to a military coup in 2021 that has resulted in a backlash from an alliance of ethnic minority forces called the Three Brotherhood Alliance. The alliance, made up of anti-junta and pro-democracy supporters, has attacked military targets in what has become a civil war.

In retaliation, Myanmar's junta—which has been hit by U.S. sanctions, but is backed by Russia and has received weapons from China—torched almost 75,000 homes last summer in a bid to crush the rebellion.

Nearly 700 Myanmar soldiers have crossed into India in the past two months, according to Reuters.

But Indian authorities have been sending them back, with the government planning to fence the border and abolish the current free movement that exists between the two countries, as it becomes increasingly concerned about its own security due to the civil war on its doorstep.

China also shares a border with Myanmar and has appealed for calm in the region following clashes that threatened its own stability.

Newsweek has reached out by email to Myanmar's embassy in the Indian capital New Delhi, seeking further information and comment about Tuesday's plane crash.

Update 1/23/24 8:53 a.m. ET: This article was updated throughout.