Poised pilots save 164 lives!

Real World Aviation
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Flight BS-141 took off from Dhaka with 164 passengers(including 11 children) at 11:30 AM BDT. While preparing for landing the pilots discovered that the nose landing gear would not extend and was locked in its place. After trying everything they could to extend the gear they decided to divert to chattogram’s Shah Amanat International Airport as that was better equipped to deal with an emergency.

Hasan Jahir, station air traffic officer of Shah Amanat International Airport, told The Daily Star, “The pilot had a 30-minute conversation over the radio with the control tower.

“He told us that the nose gear of the aircraft was not extending and wanted us to prepare for an emergency landing.

“The pilot, Captain Mohammad Zakaria, was calm and focused when he was talking to the control tower. He was describing the problem very patiently.

“He seemed confident and not frightened or panicked even for a moment,” he said.

The pilots decided to fly some holding patterns to burn off some fuel to make the plane lighter. The plane touched down at 1:18 pm BDT.

People on the ground took photos and video clips of landing and posted them on social media.
Here’s a link to the video which has the full landing recorded -

Some passengers received minor injuries while rushing out of the plane. One passenger was hospitalised and 40 others were give first Aid. The rest were counselled for psychological trauma.

Pilot Captain Mohammad Zakaria told Jagonews24.com that like any other pilot, he received training on managing emergency situations.

“Apart from training, a pilot has his own technique to apply in an emergency situation and I tried my best to be as safe as possible and I landed the aircraft thinking about the safety of all passengers and crew,” the news portal quoted him as saying.

“One of the techniques is to reduce the fuel on board,” he said, adding that the risk of explosions and the plane dragging along the runway too much is reduced with a lighter fuel load.

Passenger Pulak, who was in a wheel chair, said “Being panicked, I tried to get out hurriedly through the emergency door on the wing and I hurt my leg,” he said.

A passenger said, “I am still in panic and I do not know whether I will be able to fly again.”

However, all the passengers that The Daily Star correspondent spoke to praised the pilot.

“For the pilot, we, the 164 passengers, have gotten out safely from the aircraft,” said Qaiyum, adding, “He did not make us realise the actual danger even minutes before the emergency landing.”

Passenger Mamtaj said, “I want to express my heartiest gratitude to the pilot as he efficiently managed the situation.”

“I cannot even imagine what would have happened if there was a minor fault in decision-making in that situation,” she said.

Chattogram airport was closed for five hours following the incident. Two Chattogram-bound flights from Kolkata were diverted to Dhaka while another to Chattogram did not take off from Dhaka during that time.

The Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh yesterday formed a four-member committee to investigate the incident.

At least 51 people, including 28 Bangladeshis, were killed when a US-Bangla Airlines dash-8 Q400 crashed in Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport on March 12.

Let’s congratulate the pilots for being calm and for doing such an amazing work!! I hope everyone recovers quickly. Have a nice day.

Source 1 -

https://www.instagram.com/p/BoPXrEJAWP4/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=9xnb6hl3r0rq

Source 2- US-Bangla Airlines plane makes emergency landing at Chattogram airport

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Dang that takes some crazy skill

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Yikes glad that everybody is alright didn’t the same airline have a fatal DH8D incident at Kathmandu earlier this year?

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You’re correct! Luckily this time there were no deaths.

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Saw this on the news yesterday. Became sad to hear that another plane from my country got involved in a incident like this. It wasn’t too long ago US-Bangla had a Crash when attempting to land at Kathmandu.

Luckily enough everyone survived on this particular one, and props to the pilots for actually executing a splendid emergency landing wit no flaws.

I hope they find the core reason as to why the fornt nose gear got stuck in the first place. This could’ve ended much worse if and hope this type of incidents to not occur again, but thanks to the pilots’ ability to safely putting down the aircraft, no casualties were counted 🤲

Many are still shocked and scared after this incident, May I Pray for their best and better continuation of their life than this terrifying experience.

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The investigation is going on, I hope they find the cause ASAP. Take a look at YouTube link they have buttered it!!

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I’m guessing it’s a hydraulic promblem. Happened in the U.S the other day actually but luckily they hit some turbulence in and it came down. If it wasnt A hydraulic issue than I cant wait to hear what it is. Glad everyone is alright

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They sure did, it was a well executed landing. Now to the root cause, which is more important to find out.

@Trevor, A hydraulic leek, could be, very likely, although I myself knowing what kind of airline this is, and the type of service they undergo in the Hangar, I would first of call out Maintenance Issue, but who knows at this point. All we can do is wait and see what they find out from the investigation.

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I hope carelessness of the maintenance crew isn’t the cause! If it is then it technically puts every aircraft serviced by them in danger.

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I hope it is a maintence thing, because if it’s not, that would mean that potentially, every 737 built this way could have this same problem.

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Yeah that’s true but I always hold my doubt against the maintenance team of airliners based in Bangladesh. Hence why I never have flown with any Bangladeshi airlines to date…

Also I’d like to add that aside from Biman which is owned by the government, US-Bangla is Private, which means that they have a lower budget to run on, a lower overall economy, their profit is noting compared to what Biman makes and Biman can always get fund raise from the government and has better service teams as they are the national flag carrier.

So in the end Us-Bangla having a lower financial status due it being privately owned mena that they can’t hire as many maintenance crew members and or not as good as the ones working for Biman. Plus, some may not even be qualified to work, since the country is in pretty deep corruption, so it really wouldn’t surprise me what could be hiding behind the scenes. I mean there are 11 y/o who drive buss without a license, so who’s working for US-Bangla, Idk?

Now I hope it isn’t that serious, that they hire a crew without knowledge of repair an maintenance but I will never (knowing what my country is like) exclude the fact that there could some real faulty maintenance failure lying behind.

Well that’s me, but only the investigators can tell what went wrong with this particular aircraft…

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Well that’s messed up. I’m happy that the pilots weren’t underage or undertrained.

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That’s true, I don’t think major companies like these go overboard like others do, then again I don’t know too much about what goes on in my country since I don’t live there but having some of my relatives still down there, I do get to hear from them how the country is going downhill and It wouldn’t surprise me if maintenance were to be cause of this incident.

There has been numerous cases were maintenance has gone wrong for Biman in the past, most of them minor and gone unnoticed but there a re many such cases but today those are a memory log gone. As Biman has grown and has full support from the government, so they would let Biman down due t some faulty maintenance work, and therefore you can feel safe to fly with the flag carrier of BGD but not US-Bangla though… Not after what has happened so far this year.

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Pilots are trained to do this… that’s a well trained crew right there. Nothing more

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Well incidents like this can happen with any airline… and like @N1DG said pilots are trained to do this… and this crew did an amazing job so maybe they are not so bad after all ;)

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That’s completely true what you guys are saying, and I’m not blaming the crew, they did a incredible job, it was textbook emergency landing I’d say, but the core reason to why the nose gear jammed in first place is what I’m pointing at.

Pilots no doubt, amazing job, couldn’t have done it better. Love how they just so smoothly buttered. It’s a great landing basically :)

But if, and only if, as we don’t know yet so I won’t speculate too much or point my finger at anyone too early, but yea if maintenance is behind this then I would like whoever is responsible for this to be fired, seriously. Once again if the maintenance crew were to blame here, then I can reassure you, the rest of their fleet is in danger, no doubt. Maintenance issue in BD is not your typical, “Oh, we missed something, sorry, we shall follow the guidelines more strictly next time”, Nope. It’s more of a “Oh, okay how would I know, let’s do it again…”.

So our best would be that it’s a hydraulic problem or something along the lines, or just bad luck, that the gears got stuck… either way applause again to the pilots for being able to land the plane, flawlessly 👌

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