Following the recent retirement of the DC-10 aircraft from the Biman fleet, the national flag carrier authority has now invited an international tender to sell the aircraft as scrap.
Although an aviation museum in the US city of Seattle had earlier expressed its interest in acquiring the DC-10 from Biman Bangladesh Airlines, it eventually withdrew the offer, sources said.
“As we have no other option, we need to open an auction for selling it [DC-10]. That is why an international tender has been opened,” Civil Aviation Minister Rashed Khan Menon told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.
Admitting that he did not know the details about the auction process, the minister added that Biman could sell the aircraft body without its
engines, which were still in working condition.
Biman’s previous plan to donate the DC-10 to the aviation museum did not go through, Menon added.
The DC-10 passenger aircraft of Biman, which was the last of its model to be in operation, made its farewell flight on the Dhaka-Kuwait-Birmingham route on February 20, before being brought back to Dhaka on February 26.
According to the tender opened by the national flag carrier, any company could apply before April 23 to attend the auction. The schedule is available at Biman website: www.biman-airlines.com.
Earlier in February, Biman held an open tender to sell a separate DC-10 aircraft for Tk60 lakh.
“We sold the earlier DC-10 craft, which was in poor condition, and the buyer took the body after cutting it from the airport,” Dr Shafiquer Rahaman, director (store and purchase) of Biman told the Dhaka Tribune.
Regarding the latest sale, Debabrata Banik, chief engineer of the national flag carrier, said the management has decided to sell the engine and other equipments as separate parts and then go for scrap selling.
He added that the Biman or the civil aviation authority were facing challenges as they did not have any extra large cutter for cutting a craft like the DC-10.
Sources said Biman had also recently sold some other aircrafts from their fleet as scrap.
The DC-10 aircraft for sale was originally bought by Biman in 1989, while the Biman fleet received its first DC-10 in 1983.
The first wide-bodied tri-jet, the Douglas DC-10 had been the backbone of the Biman fleet for nearly a quarter century, as well as remaining a mainstay of medium and long-haul routes of many airlines around the world.
