A Biman Bangladesh Airlines Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner carrying 259 passengers from Toronto to Dhaka was forced into an emergency landing at Rome's Fiumicino Airport after a technical fault, leaving travellers stranded for nearly 40 hours before the aircraft finally reached Bangladesh.
Flight BG306 departed Toronto Pearson International Airport at 5:18pm local time on Thursday. After roughly eight hours in the air, the Dreamliner, registered S2-AJY, developed a technical problem and diverted to Rome, touching down at Fiumicino at about 7:20am local time on Friday. What was meant to be a refuelling-and-onward stop turned into a multi-day ordeal once engineers determined the aircraft could not continue without repairs.
For the passengers, the disruption quickly became gruelling. Travellers said they were kept on board the grounded aircraft for around eight hours on the first day while the air conditioning was not working, leaving several of them unwell. They were eventually moved into the terminal, but accommodation proved scarce: at least 174 passengers were unable to secure hotel rooms and had to wait in airport lounges and other public areas.
Biman moved to recover the flight over the weekend. The carrier dispatched a team of engineers along with the required spare parts to Rome aboard a separate service, flight BG305, on Saturday. After the repairs were completed and the necessary technical and safety checks were carried out, BG306 departed Rome at 11:00pm local time on Saturday.
The Dreamliner landed at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka at 12:30pm, bringing the nearly 40-hour disruption to a close. All 259 passengers were carried on the delayed service once the aircraft was cleared to fly.
The Boeing 787-9 is the backbone of Biman's long-haul operation, and the Toronto service ranks among the longest routes in the airline's network, typically routed with a stop in Europe. Widebody diversions of this kind are relatively uncommon, but a technical snag away from an airline's main maintenance base can cascade into a lengthy delay when spare parts and specialist engineers must be flown in from thousands of miles away.
The episode underscores the logistical challenge airlines face when an aircraft goes technical at an outstation. With no local engineering support of its own at Fiumicino, Biman had little choice but to hold its passengers in place while it organised a repair effort spanning two continents.
Sources: The Daily Star, Dhaka Tribune. Featured image: AI-generated by AviationShop. By Elena Vargas.
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