Bangladesh airline pilot who took ill mid-air dies at Nagpur hospital

CAPTAIN Nawshad Ataul Quaiyum, the Biman Bangladesh Airlines pilot who got ill while steering a Dhaka-bound flight from Muscat, Oman, on Friday, following which the plane had to make an emergency landing in Nagpur, died at the city’s Kingsway Hospital on Monday.

The flight BG 22 was carrying 122 passengers on August 27 when Quaiyum fell ill after which the co-pilot of the plane landed the aircraft at city’s Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport. An alternative arrangement was made for the passengers later in the day to fly back to Dhaka.

Quaiyum, 45, was rushed to the Kingsway Hospital, where he was stated to be in a coma till he



breathed his last. A hospital source said, “He had lapsed into a comatose state following a stroke.”

It couldn’t be known whether Quaiyum died of a brain stroke followed by a heart attack or the other way round as hospital officials said they had no authority to talk about the issue.

A Bangladesh news portal, bdnews24.com, quoted Biman Bangladesh Airlines’ spokesperson Tahera Khandaker as saying, “We have heard from the hospital that he is no longer with us.”

Some of the relatives of the pilot had arrived in Nagpur a day after he fell ill. Arrangements are being worked out to take his body back to Bangladesh.