Staff Reporter :
A flight of Biman Bangladesh Airlines with 100 passengers on board circled for an hour before landing at the Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan Airport on Tuesday.
Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister AKM Shahjahan Kamal was also on board, among others.
The Biman’s flight BG-0071 left Dhaka’s Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport for the Tribhuvan Airport at 11.00am and touched the runway of the Tribhuvan Airport at 2.01pm.
This was the first flight of a Bangladeshi aircraft approached for Tribhuvan Airport after Monday’s deadly crash of the US-Bangla plane at the airport The plane circled mid-air around the airport for an hour due to delay in receiving landing permission from the Air Traffic Control (ATC) room, according to on board Bangladeshi journalists.
The Biman’s flight reached the sky of Tribhuvan Airport at 12.30pm and sought for landing permission from the ATC control room. But the air traffic controllers of the airport did not give landing permission immediately citing traffic queue.
Later, the flight amendment announced that they have got permission for landing after 30 minutes. Few minutes later, the attendant again announced that we have to wait for more 30 minutes for landing quoting the ATC control room.
“This has led the aircraft to circle over the sky of the airport for an hour creating a panic among the passengers. The aircraft finally touched on runway at 2.01pm Bangladesh time making a bumpy landing,” according to a report of Bangla Daily Bangladesh Protidin.
A miscommunication between the pilots and air traffic control tower officials was largely blamed for the Monday’s crash of the US-Bangla plane while landing at the airport.
