Seven of the nine suspended Bangladesh Biman employees were arrested on Wednesday night hours after they were made accused in a case filed in connection with a glitch in Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's special flight on November 27.

Two other accused officials surrendered before a Dhaka court yesterday and were sent to jail.

The seven arrestees were placed on seven-day police remand each when they were produced before a court.

Wing Commander (retd) MM Asaduzzaman, director of engineering and material management of Biman, filed the case against the nine employees under the Special Powers Act with Airport Police Station early Wednesday.

A Biman flight carrying the prime minister had to make an emergency landing at the Ashgabat International Airport Turkmenistan on her way to Budapest on November 27 as engine-1 of the plane was losing oil pressure.

After the emergency landing, engineers found that a nut was loose causing the oil pressure loss.

Biman authorities formed a technical probe committee the following day to find the reason behind the incident.

Based on the findings of the probe committee, Biman first suspended six employees and later three others and filed the case against them.

The Counter Terrorism unit of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police made the arrests, Monirul Islam, chief of the unit, told reporters at the DMP media centre in the capital yesterday.

After the charge of investigation was handed over to the unit, it made sure the accused could not flee the country. At the same time, the unit launched drives in places in the city and arrested the seven accused, he added. 

“The technical probe committee found evidence of deliberate negligence in the incident. As a result, the accused people have no scope for denying their responsibilities,” said the official.

Interrogating the arrestees on remand, police would try to find the motive or whether anybody else was involved, said Monirul.

“Now our duty is to find what roles each of the nine accused played and see whether the incident was part of a bigger conspiracy,” he added.

THE ACCUSED

The nine accused are: Siddikur Rahman, a junior technician; engineers SM Rokonuzzaman, Samiul Haque, Lutfor Rahman, Milon Chandra Biswas, and Zakir Hossain; chief engineers Debesh Chowdhury and SA Siddique; and Billal Hossain, principal engineer. 

Rokonuzzaman and Siddikur were absconding before they surrendered and sought bail.

They were also produced before a court with a 10-day remand plea but the hearing did not take place yesterday.

THE CASE STATEMENT

The case statement mentioned that some necessary repair of the oil pressure sensor was conducted on the airplane before the VVIP flight.

“The oil pressure sensor and B-nut are next to each other. The complainant anticipates that the B-nut was loosened by the persons repairing the oil pressure sensor,” read the case statement.

The B-nut could also have been loosened if it was pushed during the repair, said the statement, citing the report of the technical probe committee.

It could be an act of sabotage, it mentioned.

Of the accused, Siddikur was directly involved in repairing the oil pressure sensor while Rokonuzzaman signed the Maintenance Release Book, it said.

Accused Samiul gave the repair job to Siddikur. Engineers Lutfor and Milon were present when the repair was done, but they did not perform their duties.

Engineer Zakir was tasked with collecting documents. Debesh did not discharge his duties as the team leader of VVIP inspection team.

As the chief engineer (quality assurance), SA Siddique did not do his job of supervising following the VVIP Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), said the case statement.

It added that the ninth accused Billal claimed that he verbally formed a four-member maintenance team. But in reality, the existence of such a team was not found.

It was evident in the investigation that the oil pressure sensor repair was done by junior technician Siddikur Rahman without the presence of any licensed engineer, although the rules stipulate the supervision of an engineer, read the statement.

It also mentioned that unauthorised metal jawed pliers were used for repairing the oil pressure sensor instead of the Teflon jawed pliers recommended by Boeing.

Quoting the VVIP SOP, it read, “The team leader will be responsible for ensuring that all checks/inspections of the VVIP aircraft are properly done.”