Lagos Airport major runway shut for repairs
THE only functional runway of the Lagos Airport will be shut today for repairs.
Minister of Aviation, Prof. Babalola Borishade, who disclosed this yesterday also gave the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) the mandate to sanction any operator or service provider who errs on safety issue.
The minister disclosed that the newly completed ISR runway will be used by airline for only day operations as it lacks airfield lamps.
The implication of this is that both domestic and foreign airlines will make use of the runway only at day time, pending the complete patching of potholes on the closed runway.
Speaking to reporters at the NCAA's Ikeja head office after deliberations with parastatals' chiefs, Borishade noted said after re-patching the bad spots, it would be allowed to dry before the runway is reopened to traffic.
However, a notice to airmen (NOTAM), according to the spokesman of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Alhaji Adamu Abdulahi, has been issued by the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) to both domestic and foreign airlines on the closure of the ISL runway of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
According to him, the time was chosen because that is when normal flights are operated.
Abdulahi stated that the management of airlines like Emirates Air France, KLM, Lufthansa, Virgin Nigeria, Virgin Atlantic went to the runway to certify it.
Explaining the incident involving a Lufthansa flight 564, which ran into a pothole at the runway, the minister said, "the place was repaired and by coincidence, the plane landed on that same spot before it dried. All the engineers were there at the runway yesterday and we agreed that we want to repair it. By tomorrow, everything will be fine. But the long term is that the second runway, we have finished marking it. We will start to use that for daylight flight."
He, however, admitted that the spate of incidents recorded at the nation's airports were not encouraging and was capable of denting the nation's image.
His words: "All these incidents are challenging to us. All hands must be on deck. I have come to let NCAA know that they have responsibility to ensure that we don't wait for incidents to happen before we regulate. We must anticipate things before they happen and things that are likely to happen and prevent them from happinging. This is a learning process for us and I believe that with what has happened we have become a bit more conscious of the kind of role this organisation should do in the enforcement of sanctions".
Meanwhile, media consultant for Lufthansa German Airline Mr. Kayode Olaniyan has refuted media report that the airline's aircraft LH564 overran the runway on Saturday.
Rather Olaniyan said the aircraft from Frankfurt landed safely on schedule on runway 18th of the Lagos airport last week Saturday, stressing that some broken pieces of concrete on the runway surface hit the aircraft 1700metres from threashold of runway 18L, causing damage to some hydraulic pipe and the landing gear.
The aircraft, an A330-300, according to him, was later towed to its parking position, with no one injured while all passengers disembarked safely.
He added that subsequently flight LH564 to Accra and LH 565 Accra-Lagos-Frankfurt were cancelled while passengers to Accra were flown to their destination in a chartered aircraft, while flight services to Lagos and Accra, he reiterated, resumed on Sunday with the deployment of an airbus A340.
In a related development, officials of British Airways yesterday defended the action of the airline by diverting its Lagos flight to Abuja.
The airline stated that the nature if its equipment a B747 aircraft, considered very big could re-open the patched sport of the runway and as such would compromise safety.
The airline has, however, deployed B767 on the route which is considered much smaller than the jumbo B747.
For the operators and pilots, it has been a harrowing experience as the fear of recording incident becomes more palpable.
Once it is raining pilots have to decide which landing procedure to adopt to avoid disaster.
According to industry sources, when the runway is wet, pilots have opted for hard landing in which the aircraft is banged on the runway to reduce the speed and avoid overrunning the runway.
This, however, goes with the risk of losing one or more tyres.
The other landing procedure is the normal procedure, which entails that the pilots would contend with the problem of aqua-planning and the attendant risk of overrunning the runway.
The airlines lamented that when there is an incident as a result of flooded runway, pot hole or incursion it is the airlines that get the negative publicity, the financial implications and the adverse effect on their payload.
A source close to the ministry told The Guardian that NCAA had submitted damning report on the runway that indicted FAAN to the Ministry of Aviation and would have sanctioned the airport authority but was prevented by the former aviation minister.