The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria has accused the pilot of the IRS Airline aircraft that ran into a stationary tanker on the runway of the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos of causing the accident.

FAAN, in a statement by its General Manager, Corporate Communications, Yakubu Datti, said the pilot, Captain D. Kelly, was informed that there was a broken down tanker close to the runway.

Datti said the information was passed to Kelly by a pilot of Arik Air.
He said Kelly felt he could manoeuvre and not hit the tanker that fell into the ditch on Tuesday evening.
The statement by Datti reads in full, “At about 8.30 p.m last night (October 9, 2012), a gully emptier with Reg. No. XT 461 LSD on official assignment accidentally fell into a drainage in the taxiway ramp of GAT and could not be evacuated immediately.

“At about 7.30 a.m of today, October 10, 2012 an IRS aircraft, Forkker 100 with Reg. No. 5N SAT left the parking bay of MMA2 for the threshold of Runway 18L of MMIA.

“The pilot Capt. D Kelly of IRS was informed by an Arik Pilot of an obstruction on the taxiway towards Runway 18L and he Capt. D. Kelly felt he could manoeuvre the obstacle by his own judgment but this failed because the tip of the wing of the aircraft collided with a section of the gully emptier at about 7.45a.m.

“Capt. D Kelly did not stop but continued to taxi back to the boarding gate of MMA2 to discharge his passengers.

“No passenger or crew sustained injuries as a result of the incident. All the passengers were later transferred to another IRS flight to Abuja.

“Officials of the Accident Investigation Bureau and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority were immediately invited to the scene of the incident for the on-the-spot assessment of the incident while engineers of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria were placed on stand-by to evacuate the stuck sewage tanker as soon as preliminary investigations by both AIB and NCAA are concluded.

“The Authority wishes to assure members of the public, especially airline operators and passengers, that the minor incident did not, and will not, in any way, disrupt flight operations at the airport.”. Source: http://www.punchng.com/news/faan-accuses-irs-pilot-of-hitting-tanker-with-planes-wing/

I wonder wt kinda country we r in, 1stly d truck fell into d RUNWAY drainage, it didn't occur to FAAN to quickly remove d truck frm d runway fr obvious safety reasons. Now a pilot takes of aprox' 11hrs after d truck accident(wonder wt d truck was still doin there) and hits the d truck and FAAN is tellin us dt anoda pilot told d irs pilot dt there was hazard on d run way. Wonder wen it became d job of pilots to monitor planes on ground, tot in cases like dis d control tower officials r supposed to spread the info amongs d pilots, ground aircrafts on ground n make sure non takes off until d hazard has been taken care off.SMH. Its a shame dat FAANs control tower departmnt cudnt do their job and they r looking fr a scape goat