Biman plane loses wheel mid-flight: Concerns grow over maintenance

The incident involving a Biman plane losing a wheel mid-flight shortly after take-off from Cox's Bazar yesterday raised questions about the national flag carrier's poor maintenance in running its aircraft, Biman insiders said.

Additionally, the Dash 8-400 (S2-AJW) aircraft, which lost its wheel, is known to be one of the more problematic planes of this model in Biman's fleet, according to them.

A Biman Bangladesh Airlines flight landed safely in Dhaka yesterday despite losing a wheel from its left side main landing gear shortly after take-off from Cox's Bazar.

The incident occurred moments after flight BG 436 took off from Cox's Bazar Airport for Dhaka. The aircraft was carrying 71 passengers.

"Biman's maintenance is poor. Moreover, its staff in different sections are suffering from fatigue as they are overworked due to the hajj flights," said a Biman official, wishing anonymity.

"How does a wheel of an aircraft fall down after inspection by engineer and pilot," questioned the Biman official.

"You get to see on the road that the wheel of a car falls off. Such a thing happened in the case of Biman," he also said.

"How many operators are there in the world that have incidents such as Biman. Sometimes we get to see that a tyre of a plane bursts. However, we don't see a wheel falling from the landing gear. Such an incident is rare in aviation," a captain of a Biman Dash-8 aircraft said.

"Technical faults can happen for any aircraft at any given time. Biman's Engineering and Material Management Directorate regularly carries out maintenance of Biman's aircraft," said ABM Raoshan Kabir, general manager of Biman's Public Relations (deputy secretary).

"For flying any aircraft, it needs to comply with different compliance and regulations set by the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB)," he added.

"No aircraft will be allowed to fly until it meets the compliance of CAAB," he said, adding, "In that case, there is no scope to say there is a lack of maintenance in Biman."

"Every aircraft has to go through maintenance after a certain period of time," said Raoshan.

"We will be able to know what happened exactly after the investigation into the incident is completed," he added.

Group Captain Monzur-E-Alam, director (engineering and material management), said, "We don't compromise with the safety of the aircraft as we need to go through audits of different organisations at home and abroad."

He also denied that Dash 8-400 (S2-AJW) has been suffering from frequent problems in the recent months.

He said Biman has already contacted the Canadian Da De Havilland company, manufacturer of Dash 8-400 aircraft, to know the data of such incidents worldwide.

"We invited them to visit Dhaka to inspect the incident," he added.

Biman has formed a four-member probe committee, led by Captain Enamul Haque Talukder, chief of flight safety, to investigate the incident and submit a report within 15 working days.

The airline's engineering department is also carrying out an internal enquiry.