1984 Biman Bangladesh Airlines Fokker F27 crash

1984 Biman Bangladesh Airlines Fokker F27 crash

The accident aircraft at Dum Dum Airport in 1974, ten years prior to the accident.
Accident summary
Date 5 August 1984
Summary Controlled flight into terrain[1] due to bad weather[2]
Site near Zia International Airport
Dhaka, Bangladesh
Passengers 45
Crew 4
Injuries (non-fatal) 0
Fatalities 49 (all)
Survivors 0 (none)
Aircraft type Fokker F27-600
Operator Biman Bangladesh Airlines
Registration S2-ABJ
Flight origin Chittagong Patenga Airport
Destination Zia International Airport

On 5 August 1984, a Biman Bangladesh Airlines Fokker F27-600 crashed into a marsh near Zia International Airport (now Shahjalal International Airport) in Dhaka, Bangladesh while landing in poor weather.[1] The aircraft was performing a scheduled domestic passenger flight between Chittagong Patenga Airport, Chittagong and Zia International Airport, Dhaka.[1]

With a total death toll of 49 people, it is the deadliest aviation disaster to occur on Bangladeshi soil and also the airlines' worst accident.[3]

Aircraft

The aircraft, a Fokker F27-600 registered S2-ABJ was manufactured in 1971.[1] It first flew for Indian Airlines but it was given to Biman in 1972, as a part of all the support given to Bangladesh by the Government of India following Bangladesh's Independence. At the time of the accident, the aircraft had flown a total of 24,085 cycles and had accumulated a total of 15,595 airframe hours.[1]

Crew

The captain of the flight was Kaniz Fatema Roksana, well known as the first female commercial pilot of Bangladesh.[4]

Accident

The weather conditions in Dhaka were poor on the day of the accident; there was turbulence and heavy rain made visibility very poor.[2] Amid these conditions, the crew first attempted a VOR approach to Zia International Airport's runway 32.[lower-alpha 1] As the runway was not spotted by either crew member, a missed approach was executed. The crew then tried an ILS approach on runway 14 of the same airport, but a missed approach had to be executed again as both pilots had failed to spot the runway once again. On the crew's third approach (second on runway 14), the plane got too low while it was still several hundred meters from the runway but neither crew member realized this (due to the poor visibility) and the plane crashed into a swamp about 550 meters short of the runway.[lower-alpha 2][1]

Passengers

Of the 45 passengers on board, one was British, one was Japanese while the rest were Bangladeshi. The majority of the passengers (33) were traveling to Dhaka to catch a connecting flight to the Middle East.[3]

Notes

  1. ↑ DAC has no runway 23 (as mentioned in the reference), but it has a runway 32, so it is likely "23" is just a typing error in the reference.
  2. ↑ It was also stated that the aircraft crashed beyond the runway, but considering the crash location (north west of Dhaka) and the fact that the flight was approaching runway 14 of DAC (approach is from north west of Dhaka city), it is clear that the plane crashed short of the runway and not beyond it.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Accident description for S2-ABJ at the Aviation Safety Network
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Commercial flight safety: 1984 reviewed – Fatal accidents: scheduled passenger flights" (PDF). Flight International: 35. 26 January 1985. Retrieved 14 August 2014.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "AROUND THE WORLD; 49 Die in Bangladesh As Plane Plunges". The New York Times. 6 August 1984. Retrieved 14 August 2014.
  4. ↑ [http://all-bangladesh .com/first-in-bangladesh-first-bangladeshi/ "First In Bangladesh- First Bangladeshi"].