'Technical Glitch': Biman flight returns 15 min after take-off

A Biman flight to Saidpur had to return to Dhaka and make an emergency landing at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport following a technical issue yesterday.

The plane, a Bombardier Dash-8, with 76 passengers took off at 12:28pm but returned at 12:50pm, said an air-traffic controller.

The passengers were asked to disembark and the issue was fix. Biman then had a flight to test if the matter had been properly resolved, said Biman General Manger (public relations) Shakil Meraj.

Food was served to the waiting passengers, he said.

"It's not a major problem. There might be technical glitch in a flight. The plane came back without going to Saidpur for recheck," Meraj said.

The passengers got on board again around 6:00pm but the plane was not allowed to leave due to runway closure in Dhaka. The plane waited on the tarmac until 7:30pm when air traffic control told it that it would not be able to make it to Saidpur before Saidpur airport would close at 8:00pm.

Following the pilot's announcement, the aggrieved passengers started yelling and refused to disembark. There were heated exchanges of words between the crew members and the passengers. 

One passengers, a banker, told The Daily Star that he was on holiday and was supposed to join work in Rangpur at 9:00am today. He said he had to ask his boss for another day's leave.

There were children, elderly and sick passengers who had been at the airport for more than nine hours to go to Saidpur. The flight itself is about 45 minutes long. 

Meraj apologised to the passengers for the cancelled flight and said the flight was cancelled under extreme circumstances. He said they were ready to fly but the runway closure in Dhaka and the subsequent Saidpur Airport closure forced them to cancel the flight.

He said they had even requested Saidpur Airport to keep the airport open an extra 30 minutes so that the flight could land.

Just over a week ago, another Bombardier Dash-8, of US-Bangla Airlines, crashed in Nepal's Tribhuvan International Airport killing 51 people, 26 of them Bangladeshis.

On March 4, a Bombardier Dash-8, of US-Bangla heading for Jessore, had to make an emergency landing at the Dhaka airport following technical issues.