Bangladesh Aircrew Refused to Work on Flight to Bring Back Bangladeshis from Wuhan

The novel coronavirus situation doesn’t seem to be getting any better. The current death toll is at 910 and the total number of people infected with the virus is now at 40,614. It is insane that so many people have been affected by the virus over such a short period of time.

Many countries have already taken measures to try to curb the spread of the virus, and one of which is to ensure that everyone who has travelled to China in the past 14 days would have to undergo mandatory quarantine or isolation for 14 days.

Countries that have nationals in China have also tried evacuating them by sending flights over just to pick them up.

Singapore also had Singaporeans stranded in China, and a voluntary Scoot aircrew was put together to bring them back.

Unfortunately, not everyone was evacuated.

Not Willing To Go Back

Bangladesh’s national carrier Biman evacuated 312 people, mostly students, from Wuhan last week and was initially scheduled for a second flight to evacuate 171 more Bangladeshis in China and bring them back home, but this is no longer happening because their aircrew is not willing to go to China again.

Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen said in a statement, “We can’t bring them because we can’t send any flight. No crew wants to go there. The crew who went there earlier don’t want to go either.”

The 312 people who were evacuated along with the Biman aircrew on 1 February are currently under quarantine for 14 days at a camp usually used for Haj pilgrims.

As of now, there have not been any confirmed cases and none of the people who came back tested positive for the coronavirus.

According to the minister, the government is trying to look for ways to bring their nationals back to their country. One of which is to charter a Chinese flight instead, but it seems that they haven’t been able to do so thus far.