Three foreigners die
Rescue workers engage in salvage operation of a cargo plane that crashed off the coast of Cox’s Bazar on Wednesday.
Three foreigners aboard a cargo aircraft were killed after their plane crashed into the Bay of Bengal near Nazirhat coast in Cox’s Bazar, Wednesday morning, on the way to Jessore.
The police and civil administration said all the victims, including another injured person, were Ukrainians and were flying on the Ukrainian built Antonov AN-26 of True Aviation Limited.
Flight engineer Kulish Indryy was declared dead when local fishermen rushed him to Cox’s Bazar General Hospital while the bodies of flight captain Gatarov Murad and his co-pilot Petrov Ivan were recovered after a hectic rescue operation.
The plane’s navigator Kaltunov Volodymyr, who was rescued from the bay, was admitted to the district hospital.
The district hospital’s superintendent Ratan Chowdhury said Volodymyr was not in critical condition. `He has a fracture on his right leg,’ he added.
The Civil Aviation Authorities, Bangladesh, in a statement said the aircraft carrying shrimp declared emergency minutes after it took off at about 9am, from Cox’s Bazar Airport, heading for Jessore.
The cargo cancelled its trip to Jessore and informed air traffic control that it was returning to Cox’s Bazar for emergency landing. But in a short time it lost contact with the control tower in Cox’s Bazar. The cargo was carrying some 12-boxes of juvenile shrimp.
The statement read that later it was learnt that the aircraft had crashed near Nazirhat and Sonadia Island, some 10 kilometres north-west of Cox’s Bazar airport.
Four foreign crew members were on board, it said, adding, two were rescued from the spot, rushed to the district hospital, and one of them died there.
The CAAB has initiated a probe into the ‘accident.’
It could not confirmed
whether the plane took off with additional weight beyond its payload, as industry insiders said many cargos often operate beyond their payload.
An airport official in Cox’s Bazar said the cargo had tried to land on the runway after it declared emergency but had failed.
‘A three member-team will investigate the technical issues of the crash,’ the official said.
Cox’s Bazar cargo manager Hasnat Kamal refrained from commenting on the incident.
The CAAB’s director (flight safe and regulations) Wing Commander Chowdhury Zia-ul-Kabir told New Age that ‘the actual cause of the crash will be ascertained once investigation is completed.’
He said the aircraft was flying with a valid operational certificate.
Inter-Services Public Relations, in a separate statement, said Bangladesh Navy immediately deployed BNS Operajeyo and BNS Atandra, and a maritime patrol aircraft, beside others, to search for the two missing air crew members.
Navy divers also joined the rescue operation as the two remained missing for several hours.
Beside the navy, Coast Guard, Fire Service and Civil Defence and other agencies concerned joined in the rescue operation. The maritime patrol aircraft spotted the crashed cargo.
At about 4pm, the rescue team recovered two bodies trapped in the sunken cargo.
`The bodies of flight captain Gatarov Murad and his co-pilot Petrov Ivan were found from the wreckage,’ Md Ali Hossain, deputy commissioner of Cox’s Bazar said.
Ruling Awami League’s parliamentarian (Moheskhali-Kutubdia) Asheq Ullah Rafiq, also a local agent of True Aviation Limited which operates the cargo, told reporters the wreckage will be moved to clean up the waterway for fishermen.
The bodies recovered in the incident were sent to the district hospital morgue for post-mortem.
True Aviation, whose managing director is Mashiur Rahman Tusher, is operated from capital’s Uttara.
Source: New Age
