On April 30, 2025, a Biman Bangladesh Airlines Boeing 777 flying from Madinah to Dhaka decided to play a high-stakes game with fate. Ignoring a NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) warning of Dhaka airport’s temporary closure, the pilots barrelled ahead like overconfident students skipping the syllabus.
Result? A costly detour to Sylhet, public humiliation, and yet another entry in Bangladesh’s "Governance: Hold my tea" chronicles.
This incident isn’t just about aviation -- it’s a parable for a system where warnings are treated like unread WhatsApp messages. If governance were a flight manual, ours would be dog-eared, coffee-stained, and missing pages 12-45.
Cabin announcements
Pilots who wing it
Biman’s knack for ignoring NOTAMs is matched only by its talent for creative accountability.
In 2022, two pilots nearly turned a Dash-8 into a lawn dart by over-stressing engines, then tried to delete the evidence like teenagers hiding a broken vase from mom.
The engines ratted them out via email to the manufacturer. A Tk 16.5 crore repair bill and promotions rescinded faster than a politician’s promise.
Metro rail: The almost express
Dhaka’s metro rail -- operational since 2022 -- is the overachieving sibling in this family drama. With 350,000 daily riders, it’s now stretching toward Kamalapur like a determined yoga instructor.
But delays? Oh yes. Contractors haggling over costs like Dhaka rickshaw drivers ensure the extension remains "coming soon" -- a phrase as reliable as monsoon weather forecasts.
The RTI Act: Transparency on life support
Filing a Right to Information request here is like ordering biryani at a five-star hotel -- you’ll get it eventually, but it’ll cost your sanity.
With no information commissioner for six months, citizens might as well shout queries into a monsoon gust.
Ticket syndicates: Economy-class extortion
Biman’s migrant worker fare markup -- four times regional rates -- isn’t capitalism; it’s "How to Lose Friends & Alienate Expats 101." Imagine funding a nation’s remittance economy while being treated like checked baggage.
Passengers as collateral
While no recent in-flight passenger deaths are documented, Biman’s safety record remains haunted by near-misses.
In 2019, a Dash-8 skidded off Yangon’s runway due to pilot error, injuring 20. Investigators blamed “unstabilized approaches” and poor training -- a metaphor for a state that careens from one mismanaged policy to another.
Citizens, like passengers, brace for turbulence but are never told how to fasten their seatbelts.
Wheel of misfortune
On May 16, 2025, a Biman Dash-8 shed a mid-flight wheel like a nervous debutante dropping her bouquet. The aircraft landed safely -- proof that Bangladeshi resilience thrives even when institutional nuts and bolts go missing.
Investigators now probe whether mechanics skipped torque checks or if the wheel escaped Dhaka’s humidity for Cox’s Bazar’s beaches. Either way, it’s peak Biman: Why fix landing gear when passengers can pray?
Meanwhile, CAAB -- the aviation regulator -- still greenlights pilots who falsify training logs, including 13 suspended in 2021 for phantom simulator sessions. Why outsource fraud when you can DIY? Their motto? “Flying Blind Since ’72.”
Mid-flight snacks
- Leadership SOPs: Biman’s chairman insists the airline is "profitable" -- a claim as believable as Dhaka traffic flowing smoothly. Net income: $36 million. Debt: $1.3 billion. Math: Optional.
- Hybrid governance™: The state’s plan to split Biman into local and foreign-managed halves is like asking a novice to land a 777 while the captain naps. Sri Lankan Airlines tried this. It crashed.
- Citizen-passengers: We’re all economy-class hostages here. Want answers? File an RTI. Wait six months. Repeat until existential dread sets in.
Landing approach: Can we steer this thing?
Step 1: Read the damn manual
Aviation rule one is to heed the NOTAMs. Governance rule one is to read the audit reports.
Let’s start by firing the metaphorical pilot who thinks "winging it" is a strategy.
Step 2: Upgrade from Windows 98
Dhaka’s metro proves progress is possible -- if you ignore contractor drama.
Let’s digitize bureaucracies, jail elites who treat public funds like personal ATMs, and maybe, just maybe, lease out metro station shops without a 10-year committee meeting.
Step 3: Passenger revolt
Citizens aren’t cargo. Demand transparency, laugh at ticket syndicates, and meme governance failures into oblivion.
A nation that tolerates engine cover-ups deserves the turbulence.
Clear skies ahead?
Bangladesh’s governance isn’t crashing -- it’s stuck in a holding pattern, circling the same storms.
But hey, the metro works! Sort of.
And every diverted flight is a chance to ask, “who’s flying this thing?”
Spoiler, the autopilot’s off, the co-pilot’s asleep, and the passengers are drafting strongly worded tweets.
Zakir Kibria is a writer and nicotine fugitive (once successfully smuggled a lighter through threecontinents). Entrepreneur | Chronicler of Entropy | Cognitive Dissident. Email: zk@krishikaaj.com