Glitch in PM's Flight: It's negligence, not sabotage

A Dhaka court yesterday cleared 11 Biman Bangladesh Airlines employees of attempted sabotage of a plane that carried Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in 2016.

The court, however, ordered police to lodge a case against three of them for their alleged negligence in duty.

The investigation officer of the case submitted the final report in the case on December 7 last year.

The 11 Biman staffers are: SM Rokonuzzaman, Samiul Haque, Lutfor Rahman, Milon Chandra Biswas, Zakir Hossain and Siddiqur Rahman of Biman's engineering and technical department, Debesh Chowdhury, chief engineer (production), SA Siddique, chief engineer (quality assurance), Billal Hossain, principal engineer, Shah Alam, engineer (technician) and Najmul Haq, engineer (officer).

Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime Assistant Commissioner Mahbubul Alam, also investigation officer of the case, in the final report said the charges brought against the 11 were not proved and they should be relieved. 

Following the report, the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court of Dhaka had granted them bail.

In the report, the IO appealed to the court, seeking permission for lodging a case against three officials -- Nazmul, Siddiqur and Shah Alam -- for their alleged negligence in duty.       

On November 27, 2016, the VVIP flight carrying Hasina made an emergency landing at Ashgabat International Airport in Turkmenistan on her way to Budapest after a loose nut caused engine oil leak, and oil pressure loss in engine no-1 of the Boeing 777-300ER aircraft. 

On December 21 that year, wing commander (retd) MM Asaduzzaman, director of engineering and material management of Biman, filed the case against nine staffers under the Special Powers Act with Airport Police Station.

The nine were sent to jail following their surrender. Two more Biman officials were arrested later. The officials were suspended.