One-Two-Go Grounded!

[westafricaops]

Seen in todays Bangladesh Daily Star

Biman aircraft suffers technical glitches for 2nd time in 2 days

A Boeing 747-300 aircraft of Biman Bangladesh Airlines Ltd suffered technical glitches on Friday at the Dubai International Airport a day after it faced similar trouble in Jeddah.

On Thursday, Biman's Dhaka-bound flight from Jeddah was delayed for about 20 hours due to hydraulic fail­ure of the same aircraft.

Biman leased the aircraft from a Thai airline on June 2 for a year to minimise flight dis­ruption.

The aircraft remained grounded for a day due to tech­nical problems about 15 days ago, Biman sources said.

"The Dhaka-bound flight left the Dubai Airport at about 8:00am Friday (Bangladesh Standard Time). But it had to return to the airport following a fire warning from its internal system, which was later proved false," a Biman high-up told The Daily Star last night.

After a while the aircraft tried to take off, but failed due to technical glitches, the offi­cial said adding that the stranded passengers were flown to Dhaka by another flight.

The aircraft was scheduled to leave for Dhaka at 9:00pm yesterday about 30 hours behind schedule, Biman sources said.

"The Boeing 747-300 plane that Biman leased from Orient Thai is having technical prob­lems repeatedly," the official said, adding that they will face problems in operating hajj flights if the aircraft is dogged by technical glitches.

Airport sources said Biman had to reschedule its Kuala Lumpur-bound flight twice as the Boeing 747-300 could not reach Dhaka in time.

The flight, originally sched­uled at 10:00pm Friday, had been rescheduled at 8:00pm yesterday. Later, the schedule was changed again, airport sources added.

This is UTK. Very sad, UTK was a very nice and reliable aircraft when OT received it from KLM. I guess besides low budget pilots Udom also employs low budget mechanics. Hence the phrase, "if you want to die-fly Orient Thai!"

Please tell me how a Certificate suspension only effects one fleet and not the other?

Wes Afra