Two more placed on remand over PM’s flight glitch

A Dhaka court on Wednesday placed two staffers of Bangladesh Biman on seven-day remand in a case filed over technical glitches on a flight carrying Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

"Dhaka metropolitan magistrate Jakir Hossain Tipu passed the order as inspector Mahbub Alam of Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit produced them before the court and pleaded for ten days’ remand for each of them," a court official said.

The accused are Siddikur Rahman and Rokonujjaman. The duo has already been suspended over the incident and surrendered before the court on December 22.

Another Dhaka court on December 22 placed seven other Biman staffers on seven-day remand.

They are Chief Engineer (Production) Debesh Chowdhury, Chief Engineer (Inspection and Quality Assurance) S A Siddique, Principal Engineer (MCC) Billal Hossain, Engineer Officer Samiul Haque, Engineer Officer Lutfor Rahman, Engineer Officer Milon Chandra Biswas and Engineer Officer Zakir Hossain.

Biman suspended the nine on charges of negligence in duty that caused a VVIP flight carrying Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to make an emergency landing in Turkmenistan.

The Biman management took the decision following receipt of the final report prepared by a four-member investigation team formed by the national flag carrier. The committee submitted the report to the Biman’s chief executive officer on December 12.

Apart from Biman, the Ministry of Civil Aviation and the Civil Aviation Authority, Bangladesh (CAAB) formed two separate committees to probe the incident which also submitted their reports to the ministry.

The special VVIP flight (BG1011) "Ranga Pravat" carrying the premier and 99 passengers including her entourage, four cockpit crew, 20 cabin crew and four aircraft engineers left Dhaka for the Hungarian capital at 9.14 am on November 27.

The flight was forced to make the emergency landing at Ashgabat International Airport in the Turkmenistan capital at 2.15 pm Bangladesh time by changing its route due to technical glitches in its engine. After arrival at Ashgabat, the on-duty engineers fixed the fault and the special VVIP flight departed for Budapest after over four hours of unscheduled stopover.

Source: BSS