Biman Bangladesh Airlines Flight 426

Biman Bangladesh Airlines Flight 426

The accident aircraft in 1974, ten years prior to the accident.
Accident
Date	5 August 1984
Summary	Controlled flight into terrain in bad weather [1] [2]
Site	near Zia International Airport Dhaka, Bangladesh 23°51′36″N90°22′57″E / 23.86000°N 90.38250°E / 23.86000; 90.38250
Aircraft
Aircraft type	Fokker F27-600
Operator	Biman Bangladesh Airlines
IATA flight No.	BG426
ICAO flight No.	BBC426
Call sign	BANGLADESH 426
Registration	S2-ABJ
Flight origin	Patenga Airport
Destination	Zia International Airport
Occupants	49
Passengers	45
Crew	4
Fatalities	49
Survivors	0

Biman Bangladesh Airlines Flight 426 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight between Patenga Airport, Chittagong (now Shah Amanat International Airport)and Zia International Airport, Dhaka. ^[3] On 5 August 1984, the aircraft operating the flight, a Biman Bangladesh Airlines Fokker F27-600 crashed into a marsh near Zia International Airport (now Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport) in Dhaka, Bangladesh while landing in poor weather. ^[1] All 49 occupants (45 passengers, 4 crews) had died on crash, making it the second deadliest aviation accident involving a Bangladeshi airliner behind US Bangla flight 211 and the deadliest to happen inside Bangladeshi territory to date. ^[3]

Aircraft and crew

The aircraft, a Fokker F27-600 registered S2-ABJ, was manufactured in 1971. ^[1] It first flew for Indian Airlines but it was given to Biman in 1972, as a part of all the support given to Bangladesh by the Government of India following Bangladesh's Independence. At the time of the accident, the aircraft had flown more than 24,000 cycles and more than 15,500 airframe hours. ^[1]

The captain of the flight was Kayes Ahmed Majumdar, an experienced pilot who had logged 5,000 flying hours. The first officer was Kaniz Fatema Roksana, who was the first female commercial pilot of Bangladesh. ^{[4] [5] [6] [7]}

Accident

The weather conditions in Dhaka were poor on the day of the accident; there was turbulence and heavy rain made visibility very poor. ^[2] Amid these conditions, the crew first attempted a VOR approach to Zia International Airport's runway 32. As the runway was not spotted by either crew member, a missed approach was executed. The crew then tried an ILS approach on runway 14 of the same airport, but a missed approach had to be executed again as both pilots had failed to spot the runway once again. On the crew's third approach (second on runway 14), the plane got too low while it was still several hundred meters from the runway but neither crew member realized this (due to the poor visibility) and the plane crashed into a swamp about 550 meters short of the runway. ^{[a] [1] [3]}

Passengers

There were a total of 45 passengers and 4 crew members on board the flight, all of whom perished in the crash. There was one British and one Japanese among the passengers, and the rest were Bangladeshi. Thirty-three of the passengers were traveling to Dhaka to catch connecting flights to the Middle East. ^{[8] [3]}

Notes

1. It was also stated that the aircraft crashed beyond the runway, but considering the crash location (north west of Dhaka) and the fact that the flight was approaching runway 14 of DAC (approach is from north west of Dhaka city), it is clear that the plane crashed short of the runway and not beyond it.

References

1. Accident descriptionfor S2-ABJ at the Aviation Safety Network
2. "Commercial flight safety: 1984 reviewed – Fatal accidents: scheduled passenger flights" (PDF). Flight International : 35. 26 January 1985. Retrieved 14 August 2014.
3. "[ফিরে দেখা] দেশের ইতিহাসে সবচেয়ে বড় বিমান দুর্ঘটনা : কি হয়েছিল ১৯৮৪ সালের ৫ই আগস্টt" [[Look Back] The Biggest Aviation Accident in the country's History : What happened on 5th August 1984]. Daily Prothom Alo (in Bengali). 5 August 2025. Retrieved 5 August 2025.
4. "Breaking the Glass Ceiling". thedailystar.net. Archived from the original on 6 November 2016. Retrieved 23 June 2015.
5. "First in Bangladesh – First Bangladeshi". all-bangladesh.com. All Bangladesh. 10 December 2013. Archived from the original on 14 August 2014. Retrieved 18 November 2019.
6. "Plane crash kills female trainee pilot in Bangladesh". Deccan Herald. 1 April 2015. Retrieved 18 November 2019.
7. "3 Biman pilots sacked". The Daily Star. 17 January 2000. Retrieved 22 June 2025.
8. "AROUND THE WORLD; 49 Die in Bangladesh As Plane Plunges". The New York Times . Reuters. 6 August 1984. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 14 August 2014.