Three international flights and as many domestic ones were delayed due to the disruption on the runway from 1:20pm to 5:40pm on Wednesday, the airport authorities said.
“Now the situation has normalised,” the airport’s Manager Wing Commander Sarwar-e-Jahan told bdnews24.com.
The Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh or CAAB has formed a four-strong committee to investigate the incident.
Head of Aircraft Accident Investigation Group-Bangladesh or AAIG-BD Captain Salahuddin M Rahmatullah is leading the investigations.
The committee has been asked to submit its report within 30 working days, civil aviation and tourism ministry’s spokesman Mahbubur Rahman Tuhin said.
The aircraft, a Boeing 737, took off from Dhaka’s Shahjalal International Airport with 164 passengers and seven crewmembers on board at 11am and was scheduled to land in Cox’s Bazar at 12pm.
The pilot of the US-Bangla flight BS141 circled in mid-air for some time and decided not to land as the nose wheel of the plane was stuck.
The airplane later flew to the Chattogram airport where the authorities arranged for its emergency landing.
When an aircraft is unable to touch down with its landing gear fully extended, it usually performs a gear-up or “belly” landing.
The pilot of the flight BS141 finally managed a safe landing. No major casualties were reported.
As the plane stuck on the runway of the Chattogram airport, flight operations there stopped after 1:20pm, forcing passengers of the other flights to wait.
A Regent Airways flight and another of the US-Bangla to Kolkata, and Biman Bangladesh Airlines’ Doha flight were delayed.
Two flights of Novoair and another of the US-Bangla from Dhaka also ran behind schedule.
A US-Bangla flight from Dhaka landed at the airport an hour after the Boeing 737 was rowed away from the runway at 5:40pm.
Mohammad Moshiul Haque, a teacher of Chattogram University of Engineering and Technology, said he was scheduled to catch a flight to Kolkata from Dhaka at 7:20pm after leaving the port city.
He had to cancel the booking and book a 9:20pm flight due to the delay, he said.
