Air Force Plane In Close Mishap, As Passengers Escape Death In Port Harcourt

PHOTO: THE PORT HARCOURT INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT.

San Francisco March 12, (THEWILL) - A Nigerian Air Force carrier with 47 passengers including journalists and rescue agency personnel and five flight crew personnel on a simulated emergency exercise, overshot the runway of the Port Harcourt International Airport and stopped in the brush on Friday afternoon, leaving several parts of the plane destroyed according to an eye witness.

The plane was said to have suddenly refused to cut speed after it landed causing it to lose control and made straight for the brush, knocking down trees in the process before it finally came to a halt in the muddy part of the brush at the airport area. 

Ironically, the team was assembled to demonstrate to journalists the timeliness and effective manner in which relevant government agencies respond to emergency rescues.

In the team were personnel of National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA; Civil Defence Corps; Federal Fire Service; Road Safety Corps; Nigerian Police; Nigerian Air Force; Federal Fire Service; and Nigerian Police Force. 

A handful of the passengers who had boarded the G888 series plane from Abuja were injured during the incident but no life was lost.

The fire service and other emergency agencies at the airport moved in immediately to the scene to remove passengers from the plane while authorities closed the airport and air space for some hours.

Air Commodore Yomi Bankole, the NEMA Director of Search and Rescue Operations, while briefing journalists at the airport said, "It was an unfortunate incident. A plane we used veered off the runway."

On what could have caused the accident, he said, "In the aviation industry, we do not run into hasty conclusions until after investigations."

Senate Committee Chairman on NEMA, Smart Adeyemi who was at the airport could not hide his disappointment and said the unfortunate incident has "exposed how unprepared we are given the equipment on the ground.

"It is unbecoming that we have only fire fighting vehicles in the airport. Our only luck was that the plane did not burst into flames, otherwise, the equipment on the ground would not have contained the disaster."