United Airways plane makes emergency landing; passengers ‘suffer’

A kuala Lumpur-bound flight of United Airways made an emergency landing in Dhaka minutes after take-off because of a ‘mechanical fault in one of the engines’.

The plane’s 170 passengers were safe but claimed to have been victims of ‘negligence’ on the part of the airliner.

The fault was detected after the plane had climbed to a height of at least 30,000ft on Tuesday night, several passengers told bdnews24.com.

“Our flight was supposed to take off at 11pm. But it was delayed by 20 minutes. About half an hour after take-off, we heard loud noises inside the aircraft,” Abrar Hossain, one of the passengers, said on Wednesday.

“The plane abruptly lost height. We were told it was encountering mechanical problems. We were given oxygen masks. Fifteen minutes later, we landed at Shahjalal International Airport,” he added.

Another passenger, Tariq Ali, said, “I have only read about plane crashes in newspapers and heard about them on TV. Yesterday, I realised how terrifying the situation can be.”

“Women cringed with horror and children cried. All of us were praying to our maker to save us,” he said, describing the situation to bdnews24.com.

The passengers claimed that after waiting for several hours at the airport, the United Airways authorities sent them to Hotel Swiss Park in Uttara at about 5am on Wednesday.

Accusing the airline of not being in touch with the passengers, Abrar Hossain said that they were asked to leave the hotel at 12 noon.

The hotel management told the passengers to contact the agencies that had arranged their tickets and that United Airways flights would not be available for the next three or four days, Hossain said.

He said no one from the airline had contacted them after they were sent to the hotel.

But United Airways General Manager (grounds) Azizul Islam told bdnews24.com that they had contacted the passengers through the hotel management.

Regarding the defect in the aircraft, he said, “A problem in one of the engines had forced the plane to make an emergency landing. Our engineers are trying to find out what went wrong.”

The United Airways official also said that he had no information on why they would not operate as per schedule in the next three or four days.

In 2005, the Civil Aviation Authority, Bangladesh issued United Airways its licence to operate. The company started passenger flights two years later.

The company’s fleet consists of 11 planes, including one Dash 8, three ATR 72s, five MD 83s and two Airbus A310s.

Last year, the company was forced to ground all its domestic and foreign flights for three days after its pilots went on a strike demanding pending salaries.

Source: Bd news24