Dubai airport reopened at 2pm today after an accident in which a Bangladesh Biman Airlines plane overshot the runway.
The accident – at 6.30am local time – forced the closure of Dubai International Airport (DXB) and caused 71 flights to be cancelled or diverted, the airport claimed in a statement.
All passengers on board the plane are safe but there are some minor injuries, according to a spokesman for the Department of Civil Aviation of the Government of Dubai (DCA).
“Bangladesh Airlines flight BG006 from Dubai to Dhaka had technical difficulties and failed to take off. All 236 passengers on board are safe and were evacuated immediately,” a spokesman told ArabianBusiness.com.
Initial reports claimed that there were 236 people on board but the figure was put at 229 later in the day. The DCA said this evening that 27 people were injured, nearly double the original estimate.
“[They] were attended to immediately by the emergency medical team at the airport. Only one injured passenger was taken to Trauma Centre at Rashid Hospital, and was discharged by afternoon,” said a statement issued by the DCA.
“The General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) and DCA are investigating the cause of the accident,” said the statement.
A DCA spokesman confirmed to ArabianBusiness.com that the airport went “fully operational” at 2pm following nearly eight hours of closure. The first incoming flight – an Emirates service from Islamabad, Pakistan – landed at around 2.20pm.
Early reports suggested that part of the runway was destroyed. The airport has just one runway that is used for both take off and landing.
Thirty five incoming planes were diverted to airports in Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Al Ain, and Ras Al Khaimah in the UAE, and to Muscat (Oman), Kuwait and Shiraz (Iran).
Outbound passengers queued for coaches to take them to other airports, such as Abu Dhabi. These included BA passengers originally scheduled to fly to London at around 8am local time.
Some passengers, however, reported that they were left stranded at the airport with no information about alternative flights or hotel accommodation.
The DCA spokesman claims that only 36 outbound flights were cancelled but could not specify how long the backlog of passengers would take to clear.
Huraiz Bin Huraiz, a DCA spokesperson said in an emailed statement that “safety of passengers is our first and most important priority”.
“I am glad it all ended relatively well. The closure of the runway for eight hours was primarily to inspect its condition and ensure that operations could be resumed. We are operational at full capacity but passengers should check with their respective airlines to confirm the status of their flights,” added Huraiz.
DXB is the Middle East’s busiest airport, with more than 28.7 million passengers and 1.4 million tonnes of freight passing through in 2006, according to its website (
http://www.dubaiairport.com/
). It is a major hub for transfers between Europe and Asia.
A Bangladesh Airlines spokesman confirmed that a Dubai-Dhaka flight had experienced technical difficulties.
“There was a serious problem with the nose wheel. You can call it a technical fault. [The incident occured at] around 8am Dhaka time,” the spokesman told ArabianBusiness.com.
The spokesman claimed that there were 231 people on board – not 238 – including 13 airline employees.
A plane scheduled to leave Dhaka at 9.30pm this evening would collect the passengers stranded at DXB. Its capacity would allow it to take “most of the passengers” back to Dhaka, said the Bangladesh Airlines spokesman.
Safir Haider, Bangladesh Airlines station manager based at DXB, says that the passengers on the plane are “safe and sound”.
Biman, bailed out by a government loan last year, said in December it planned to lease four aircraft to enable it to resume flights on routes it had had to cut for lack of airworthy planes. Biman stopped flights to New York, Paris, Tokyo, Frankfurt and Brussels last year because of aircraft shortages.
It has been flying to 21 destinations with a fleet of 13 aircraft, two of which are grounded awaiting repairs.
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