US-Bangla aircraft skids off runway during landing at Syedpur Airport, no casualties

A US-Bangla Airlines plane has overshot the runway while landing amid rains at the Syedpur Airport, halting operations at the domestic airport for seven hours.

The mishap took place at around 7:45am on Friday but there were no injuries, said Rakib Mustakin, the Syedpur in-charge of the airline.

Sheikh Saadi Shishir, a spokesperson for the airlines, told bdnews24.com the plane, en route from Dhaka to Syedpur, skidded past the point where it was supposed to stop as rain had made the runway slippery.

Mustakin said one of the wheels of the Dash 8 Q400 plane was damaged after it slipped out of the runway and sank into the earth.

But the airlines Managing Director Abdullah Alam Mamun claimed otherwise.

“It landed normally and did not actually skid off,” he told bdnews24.com over phone in the evening.

“One of its wheels partially sank in the mud after landing,” he added.

Flight BG-152 was carrying 74 passengers, including Parliament Whip Iqbalur Rahim and Nilphamari-3 MP Golam Mostofa.

“The passengers are safe,” Mustakin told bdnews24.com.

Operations at the airport were suspended until afternoon before the army and fire service personnel repaired the plane’s wheel and towed it back to the runway.

Whip Rahim said bad weather had caused the incident.

“The prime minister called me after learning about the mishap. I told her that everyone was fine,” he told bdnews24.com.

Two engineers of the airlines flew to Syedpur from Dhaka. Several engineers from Syedpur cantonment and the airport’s fire service officials joined them.

It flew back to Dhaka at 3:45pm with 46 passengers, the airline official added.

Syedpur airport’s Manager Shahin Ahmed said it was not a big accident.

“Operations resumed after the plane was removed,” he said.

</div>  </p>