Abuja Bound Lufthansa Plane In Close Mishap

San Francisco, May 24, (THEWILL) - A Lufthansa aircraft LH562 from Frankfurt to Abuja and Malabo, Equatorial Guinea with some important Nigerian dignitaries experienced severe turbulence while trying to land in Abuja as scheduled at 16:45hrs on Sunday afternoon but had to spend more than an hour hovering above the clouds because of severe bad weather.

THEWILL gathered from one of the passengers on board the plane, Dr. Richard Ukiri, a consultant cardiologist in Abuja, that there was sporadic lightening in the clouds that had some impact on several landing attempts, causing the pilots and control tower to abort landing at Abuja’s Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport.

Having burnt some fuel hovering in Abuja airspace, the plane could not fly with the remaining fuel to Malabo and had to do an emergency refueling in Lagos before it departed to Malabo.

Dr. Ukiri told THEWILL that the Abuja bound passengers were returned safely to Abuja from Malabo at 23:40hrs on the same aircraft.

Recall that a few weeks ago, an Aero Contractors morning flight from Abuja to Lagos on a Sunday morning suffered a similar fate in Lagos when it made several unsuccessful attempts to land at the domestic wing of the Murtala Mohammed Airport, causing it to hover around Lagos airspace for more than 90 minutes until it was eventually able to land.