Saidpur Airport: Jackal causes 25-minute delay in landing

A Bangladesh Biman flight faced a 25-minute delay in landing at the Saidpur Airport in Nilphamari due to a jackal wandering on the runway this morning.

The flight, which departed from Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka 20 minutes late, was scheduled to land at Saidpur Airport around 8:20am Friday. However, as the plane prepared for its descent, the pilot of the Biman spotted an unexpected visitor on the runway – a jackal.

Forced to abort the landing, the pilot started circling in the sky while informing airport authorities about the situation.

Airport officials and ground staff promptly sprang into action, successfully driving the jackal away and clearing the runway for a safe landing. After approximately 25 minutes of flying around, the plane finally touched down at 8:45am.

Suplob Kumar Ghosh, the manager of Saidpur Airport, confirmed the incident but declined to comment further.

The incident is the latest in a series of disruptions at Saidpur Airport. Just days earlier, on May 28, flight operations were halted for four hours due to a malfunctioning of nose wheel on a Bangladesh Biman flight, which engineers struggled to fix but failed after trying for four hours.

Operations resumed after the faulty aircraft was moved to the parking bay around 2:00pm.