Executive jets to be bought for president, PM
2 bodies formed to probe emergency landing of PMs flight
Staff Reporter
Two executive aircraft will be bought for the use of president and the prime minister, Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister Rashed Khan Menon has said. He stated this to reporters while replying to questions on the incident of an aircraft of Bangladesh Biman carrying the prime minister making emergency landing in Turkmenistan capital Biskek on way to Hungary after developing troubles on its fuel system on Sunday. The minister was coming out of a meeting of the parliamentary standing committee on Civil Aviation and Tourism yesterday.
Menon said, he had already spoken to the finance minister on the purchase of the two separate executive aircraft for VVIP flights by the president and the prime minister and these will be bought soon. Meanwhile, to investigate the emergency landing of the flight carrying Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, a four-member probe committee has been formed by national flag carrier Biman Bangladesh Airlines. The Aviation and Tourism Ministry has formed another probe committee, led by Additional Secretary Swapan Kumar Sarkar
(Administration and Tourism) to investigate the incident, Aviation and Tourism Minister Rashed Khan Menon told reporters.
The Biman committee is headed by Capt. Fazal Mahmud Chowdhury, chief of technical affairs. The other members are Capt. Shoaib Chowdhury, chief of flight safety, Mohammad Hanif, deputy chief engineer, and Nironjon Roy, manager of quality assurance.
Shakil Meraj, general manager and spokesperson of Biman Bangladesh Airlines, said the probe committee has to submit its report within Thursday.
He also said the actual reason behind the emergency landing would become clear after checking the airplanes flight data recorder (FDR) and cockpit voice recorder (CVR), also known as black boxes.
The flight data recorder (FDR) is a device that preserves the recent history of a flight through the recording of dozens of parameters collected several times per second.
The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) preserves the recent history of the sounds in the cockpit, including the conversation of the pilots. The two recorders give an accurate testimony, narrating the aircrafts flight history, to assist in any later investigation.
The PM will return on Wednesday night from her visit to Hungary.
Earlier, on Sunday, the aircraft carrying the Prime Minister, a Boeing 777-300 ER (Ranga Probhat), had taken off at 9:14am from Dhaka airport. It also carried local government and rural development (LGRD) minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain and water resources minister Anisul Islam Mahmud.
The aircraft was scheduled to land in Budapest around 6:45pm, Bangladesh time. But it landed at Ashkhabad, the capital of Turkmenistan, at 2.15pm Bangladesh time, by changing its route, due to a technical fault, said a press release. After arrival at Ashkhabad, the engineers on duty there repaired the snag, the release added. Later, the flight started for Budapest at 6.37pm, Bangladesh time, and reached Ferenc Liszt International Airport there at 11pm, Bangladesh time, yesterday. In June, a Biman flight carrying the PM had to circle over Dhaka for around 20 minutes before landing at the Shahjalal International Airport. Fragments of titanium blades of an aircraft engine got scattered on the lone runway of the airport after it had aborted take-off.
