The authorities of the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has suspended some of its officials following the aversion of a major air mishap, on Wednesday at the Lagos Airport runway.
It was gathered that a Max Air jet, which landed on runway 18L of the Lagos airport, almost rammed into a malfunctioning car that was being tested on the runway.
Investigations revealed that a FAAN’s Civil Department van had developed a fault, and officials were forced to invite an auto technician from outside the airport to fix it.
Unconfirmed sources said the that the FAAN workers resorted to fetching a technician from the city because the agency’s department meant to cater to such a situation probably lacked the applicable personnel.
Findings revealed that after fixing the vehicle, the auto technician decided to carry out a test drive on the runway.
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But the FAAN officials who were meant to stay with him while he was fixing the car were said to be nowhere to be found.
It was learnt that the auto technician had called the FAAN officials who invited him to the airport but there was no response. He consequently decided to test-drive the vehicle and headed straight on runway 18L.
Multiple airport officials later confirmed that while the auto technician was test-driving the car on runway 18L, a Max Air plane arriving from Abuja with passengers on board suddenly landed and faced the moving car.
The pilot of the speeding plane was forced to rapidly halt the speeding aircraft’s roll-on process, as he struggled to avoid a collision with the car.
The pilot immediately put a radio call through to the Nigeria Airspace Management Agency’s air traffic control officials on duty at the control tower who also alerted Aviation Security and airfield officials of FAAN on duty.
The officials immediately rushed to the runway to arrest the auto technician.
A top official of FAAN, who spoke on condition of anonymity for lack of authority to speak on the matter, confirmed the development.
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The official identified the auto technician as Opeyemi Soyombo but blamed the agency officials for negligence.
The official said, “Mr. Opeyemi Soyombo was apprehended on our airside because of an incursion into the runway. Unfortunately, he shouldn’t have, because all our drivers receive training in airside driving. So, it was negligence on the part of our colleagues to have left someone that has no business on the airside at all.
“The mechanic is not to be blamed. He doesn’t know the rules. He was just hired to go and repair a vehicle. As far as I’m concerned, the mechanic is not to be blamed.
“It is my colleagues that are to blame for leaving someone that has no business being on the airside.
“The MD has said they should all be given a query for doing that. We are very grateful that we were able to avert what could have been an incident.”
The General Manager, Corporate Affairs, FAAN, Mrs. Henrietta Yakubu, also confirmed the development.
In a statement, titled ‘Runway incident: FAAN suspends airfield staff, commence an investigation,’ the agency said the affected staff members had been suspended.
It said, “Following an averted near-incident involving a Max Air aircraft from Abuja, which landed on Runway 18L, and a maintenance vehicle belonging to the Civil Department of the authority, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria has suspended the airfield officer on duty at the time of the incident.
“The authority has also commenced a full-scale investigation into the incident, to prevent future re-occurrence of such incident.”
