National footballers narrowly escape accident

The Bangladesh national football team narrowly escaped an accident as an Oman-bound flight, carrying them, was forced to make an emergency landing in the Dhaka airport one hour after taking off on early Monday.

An Oman-bound flight of Biman Bangladesh Airlines (BG-021 flight), carrying the 26-member Bangladesh National Football team, flied for Oman on Sunday night to play their away match for the joint qualification for the FIFA World Cup 2022 and AFC Asian Cup 2023 against Oman on November 14.

The Bangladesh booters left for Oman around 11:30 pm, although they were scheduled to leave Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport at 9:30pm.

Ahsan Ahmed Amit, media officer of the team, said, “We heard harsh sound one hour after taking off and all the lights of the plane turned off. The air conditioners also became dysfunctional.”

“After a while, the pilots declared that the aircraft suffered from mechanical trouble, which created panic among footballers. All started reciting the "doa" (prayers). General passengers roamed inside the aircraft. Later, the aircraft landed in the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport around 1:30 am,” he said.

Later, the team was accommodated a city hotel in the Uttara. They were scheduled to leave the airport at 10:30pm.

However, no official update was made yet till the filing of the report around 11:10 am on Monday.