Aero makes air return over burst tyres

An Aero Flight NG 127 made emergency landing back to Murtala Muhammed Airport 2 shortly after take-off yesterday evening. According to a passenger, who was on board the aircraft and who called New Telegraph on the telephone, the incident affected one of the wings of the plane.

The source, who declined to give her name, said the aircraft had to go on an emergency landing back to Lagos, adding that on landing, the pilot announced that one of the wheels had been lost. “It couldn’t move further from the runway. So, buses came to pick the passengers from the runway.

We detected that the wing of the plane was damaged and alerted a hostess. The pilot lost control, but thank God we landed safely.” The airline in a statement said the flight, NG127 from Lagos to Abuja made an air return as a result of a burst tyre, which it said occurred just as the airplane was lifting up. The airline said the pilot did the right thing by not trying to abort the take-off, stressing that he controlled the airplane into the air and following all trained procedures, he brought the plane back to a safe landing.

It stated that at no time during all these were the passengers’ lives at any risk. It would be recalled that the sector had witnessed incidents in the last two weeks, raising the adrenalin of not only the travelling public, but those of stakeholders and other concern citizens. Just last week Saturday, one of the First Nation’s airplanes was taxiing from the runway to Murtala Muhammed Airport Terminal Two (MMA2), to disembark passengers while the other airplane was taxing to take off to Port Harcourt Airport from the same terminal when they hit each other, causing substantial damage to the wings of the two planes.

The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority NCAA has confirmed the air return made by Aero Contractors plane from Abuja Tuesday afternoon. According to a statement from Mr Fan Ndubuoke, general manager, public affairs of NCAA, the aircraft which took off from the MMA2 at about 3pm to Abuja from Lagos developed technical problem and made an air return as the normal procedure.