US-Bangla plane crash: One man’s story of survival

Mehedi Hasan, one of the few lucky survivors of the ill-fated US-Bangla flight BS211, recounted what had happened on Monday to the Dhaka Tribune. He was interviewed at the Kathmandu Medical College Teaching Hospital, where he is undergoing treatment, with the permission of his physician. Speaking to the Dhaka tribune about his brush with death, Mehedi said: “The aircraft crashed around 2:10pm on Monday. About 45 minutes before the crash, the crew announced that we were going to land. “The aircraft lost and gained altitude several times during its descent to the runway. It then crashed after bumping on to the runway twice.” When asked about his miraculous survival, Mehedi said: “I was seated in the middle-last part of the fuselage. The front part and some of the middle part of the plane caught on fire as soon as it crashed. I tried to break the window, but failed. “I saw a crack in the fuselage in front of me, and I used it to escape the plane. Then I pulled out my mother and wife. I did not go inside to help more people escape, because the situation was getting worse.” Responding to a query about his wife, Mehedi told the correspondent that she is in the ICU. “We could not understand until the last moment that the plane was going to crash. After the aircraft hit something twice, we understood that something was wrong,” he said. “We heard a huge explosion, and the fuselage crumpled like paper all around us. A fire broke out inside the plane immediately. Everyone was trapped inside, as the seats got fused together after the crash.” Mehedi told the correspondent that he and his family were visiting Nepal for a holiday in Kathmandu, and they had return tickets for March 18. “Other family members, including my mother-in-law and cousins are here with me, to help me deal with the trauma,” Mehedi told the Dhaka Tribune.