The Punch newspaper has reported that yet another air mishap was avoided on Monday at the Nnamdi Azikwe Airport in Abuja when a Med-View airline suddenly took off again seconds before landing on the runway.
The pilot, reportedly, told the passengers that he took off again to avoid colliding with another aircraft on the tarmac.
The airline, Flight VL2104 took off from the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos at noon and was scheduled to land in Abuja at about 1.05pm.
The pilot had already announced final descent into Abuja and had asked all passengers and cabin crew to fasten their seat belts but the pilot suddenly took off again barely 30 seconds before the plane was due to touch the tarmac.
There were 150 passengers on board including a Punch correspondent.
Three minute after he took the plane up again, the pilot informed the passengers that he had to take the aircraft back up to avoid colliding with an aircraft that was on ground.
The aircraft hovered for another 20 minutes in the air before finally landing at about 1.30pm.
The PUNCH correspondent said that among the passengers were five different complete families.
One of the passengers, a nursing mother, who was breastfeeding her son at the time the pilot took off again reportedly withdrew the breast from the boy’s mouth and started praying profusely while the baby’s cry filled the air.
When the plane finally landed, a stampede almost occurred as the passengers struggled to disembark.
“Are you still sitting down? Let me rush down in case it will suddenly take off again,” a middle-aged man was heard teasing one of his co-passengers.
Ever since the ill-fated Associated airline flight conveying the body of Dr. Olusegun Agagu crashed in Lagos earlier this month of October, it appears no week has passed that another crash is not narrowly avoided.
Only days ago there was a report of two planes colliding on the runway at the Murtala Mohamed Airport in Lagos.
Before that, another air crash, that could have involved over 500 pilgrims returning from Mecca, was narrowly avoided.
