- Title: Bangladesh: Plane Crash SurVIvors Tell Story Of Their Escape
- Date: 22nd December 1997
- Summary: In what is being described as a miracle, all 89 passengers and crew escaped death when their plane crash-landed in a Bangladesh paddy field in thick fog. As passengers emerged from the plane and looked back in wonder at their escape, their only words were that it was a miracle that they had survived. The Biman Bangladesh Airlines Fokker 28 came down in the field just three kilometres (two miles) from the airport runway near the north-eastern town of Sylhet at 10. 40 p. m. (1640 GMT) on December 22 1997. More than 55 survivors, including the plane's pilot Captain Mannan, were injured, but miraculously nobody perished in the crash. Hundreds of villagers, paramilitary soldiers and army troops joined rescue efforts, pulling passengers from the wreckage as it lay smoking in a field. The plane, with 85 passengers and four crew on a domestic flight from the capital Dhaka to Sylhet, made several attempts to land in poor visibility but failed and belly-landed in the field, breaking up on impact. The injured passengers were rushed to nearby Sylhet where medical services treated and hospitalised the worst injured. Passengers described the crash, saying the plane had been coming in through a heavy fog, when all of a sudden there was a jerk as it ploughed into the ground. Mansoor Ali said the plane fell 300 feet. Both he and his wife were injured but his children escaped unharmed. The pilot, Mannan, said the plane had hit an airpocket. Most of the passengers appear to have escaped with minor injuries. About 40 of the passengers were on their way to Sylhet from London, mostly on holiday on the Christmas eve. Eighteen passengers were British citizens who migrated from Bangladesh. The rest were Bangladeshis. The Fokker 28 was procured by Biman in 1981 and according to officials was in good condition. An investigation is under way to determine the cause of the crash. Biman's other Fokker 28 has been grounded until the cause the its sister plane's crash is determined.
- Embargoed:
- Keywords:
- Access Restrictions:This media cannot be downloaded as there may be copyright restrictions. Please contact us for more information
- Location: BANGLADESH SYLHET
- Reuters ID: LDL00127MJSD7
- Aspect Ratio: 4:3
- Story Text:
- Copyright Holder: Reuters Archive
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2014. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp