ir flight traveling from Lagos to Asaba, Delta State, made a sudden turn midair on Friday evening after it reached its destination but was told that the airport was “closed for the day”.


Flight W3 628 had to return to the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos, with the disappointed passengers.

The spokesperson of the airline, Olabanji Ola, who confirmed the incident to PREMIUM TIMES, said, “when the pilot approached the Asaba Airport, the control tower told him it would be too late for the aircraft to take off again if it lands in the airport."

“The airport is for daylight operation because it does not have traffic lighting. So, there’s a particular time if the pilot enters the airport the plane would not be able to take off again because of sunset,” Mr. Ola said.

The incident happened around 6.15 p.m., he said.

The spokesperson said that Arik was very well aware of the limitation at the Asaba Airport, but that “the normal time the airport is supposed to close which the airport gave us is 6.30 p.m.”.

He, however, said that the airline was not liable for any damage the passengers may have suffered because of the incident.

“What has happened is a force majeure, the airline is not liable. In this circumstances, what we did was to reschedule the flight for next day."

“It is not as if we have canceled the flight. Any passenger that is not ready to be on the flight again, we will refund the fare,” Mr. Ola said.

Chidinma Aniakor, one of the passengers on the Arik flight, was said to have resorted to traveling by night in a bus from Lagos to Asaba in order to meet up with an important engagement.

Arik airplanes


http://saharareporters.com/2018/01/13/nigerian-aircraft-fails-land-returns-lagos-after-reaching-destination

After all the billions uduaghan and okowa spent on that airport.
Still cannot operate at night.

Lol

. Am I the minister of aviation

"What has happened is a force majeure" my a$$.

Bloody lazy incompetent 1d1ots. The time of sunset in any parts of the world is known accurately to a second. They knew they are running late and that is entirely their fault. It is not as if the sunset suddenly came earlier that evening. They do not plan, they just try their luck, so if the traffic controller at the destination didn't stop them they would still try to make it, in a very UNSAFE way.

The whole thing is very simple. You know how much time you need to reach the destination and land, then load passengers and cargo. You know what the closing time for the destination airport is for that date. If they calculated that they can't make it before the airport closes, they should play safe and not depart from Lagos in the first place. What they did was extremely irresponsible and dangerous. It is not only enough to be able to take off, but take off and reach the altitude. If they had, for example, multiple bird strike to the engines on takeoff, they would lose both engines and would have to return to the same airport they just took off from. If the airport doesn't have lights for night landings, they would most likely crash.

That is Nigerian aviation for you.

Oh, now I see this was Arik. Bloody thieves. May they go bankrupt and have to sell their planes to pay off the debts.

Yet Uduaghan or what spent billions of naira to construct the said airport. An international airport for that matter yet no lighting systems or even one international flight landing there. An airport that supposed to be booming because of it's proximity to the industrial and business town of Nnewi, onitsha, Nkpor and asaba. It is a real pity that government will waste money on white elephant projects instead of creating enable environment and jobs for the youths. It is well sha

Delta is cursed