Just a few days after the mishap involving Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s plane, another Biman Bangladesh Airlines flight was compelled to make an emergency landing yesterday at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport as its nose wheel had ruptured. The 149 passengers and seven crew members of the 162-seater Boeing 737-800 of the national flag carrier were unharmed following the emergency landing.
The flight BG112, which took off from Muscat, Oman, around 4:48am, was bound for Shah Amanat International Airport in the port city of Chittagong. But instead of Chittagong, it made an emergency landing at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport at 10:07am, confirmed Kazi Iqbal Karim, director of the Dhaka airport.
All flight operations in Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport were halted from 10:07am to 12:30pm because of the incident. Shakil Meraj, Biman’s general manager (public relations), told The Independent that shortly after taking off from Muscat International Airport, the control tower there informed the pilot of BG-112 that parts of the wheels of the plane had been found on the runway, warning that there could be problems with the wheels.
On receiving the information, the pilot took all sorts of precautions and prepared the plane for emergency landing at Dhaka airport instead of Chittagong, as Shah Amanat airport lacks the facility for emergency landing.
The pilot made two ‘loss passes’—go-around manoeuvres followed by an approach—over the runway to allow the Biman engineering team and experts to determine the nose wheel’s condition. The aircraft was also made to lose fuel to reduce the risk of fire.
During one such loss pass, it was found out that the left back wheel was ruptured. The experts suspected that the wheel rupture occurred during the take-off at Muscat airport. The flight finally landed at the airport at around 10:07am.
Meanwhile, since flight operations in Dhaka airport were closed for a couple of hours, all flight schedules have been delayed and created chaos in the airport that went on till the late afternoon.
Biman is already facing severe criticism for the glitch that compelled Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Hungary flight to make an emergency landing on November 27. Seven Biman officials have been suspended and arrested in connection with the incident.