By DANIEL ETEGHE

There was tension in the aviation industry Saturday amid speculation  that there was an incident involving a Qatar Airways Airbus 332 with 284 passengers onboard on its way to the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos from Doha, Quatar.

But investigations  by Sunday Vanguard revealed that the aircraft had an emergency landing around 1:04 p.m. at MMIA because of low pressure in the tyres in the under carriage of the aircraft.

Words  had earlier gone round that the aircraft suffered burst tyres.

A reliable source close to air traffic controllers at the MMIA, who refused to have his name in print, confirmed that the aircraft did not have burst tyres, rather the incident happened while the aircraft was about to land.

He pointed out that the tyres in the under carriage of the aircraft  burst  as it made contact with the runway due to low pressure.

According to him, while the Quatar Airways Airbus 332 aircraft took off in Doha Quatar, the pilot of the airline discovered that the tyres in the under carriage had low pressure; so he had to contact the airlines  staff  in their station in Nigeria  to inform the ATC on duty to make  precautionary arrangement to salvage the situation on landing.

He further noted that no sooner than the aircraft landed than it got stuck at the cargo side of the runway , preventing other planes  from using the runway until it was toed  with a push back tractor to the apron of the airport in order to disembark the passengers on board.

Sunday Vanguard gathered further that as soon as the aircraft landed, it was escorted by four fire tenders and one operational vehicle to the apron side of the airport  in case of any fire outbreak.

Scores of fire fighters belonging to FAAN, Lagos State Fire Service and Julius Berger, and ambulance vehicles were mobilised at the cargo unit of the airport preparatory to the aircraft landing.

Even, officials of the Lagos State emergency management agency were fully mobilised to the airport in the event of a possible crash.

The panic-stricken passengers were reluctant to speak on their experience. They were  rather were grateful to God for saving them from air crash.

Speaking to reporters at the cargo section of the Lagos international airport , the media officer of NEMA, Mr Ibrahim Farinloye, who led the emergency process on behalf of the agency, explained that they received  a distress call from the pilot of the aircraft on approach to Lagos, that the aircraft had  burst tyres on the rear side, which would require emergency management on landing.

Meanwhile, the Director General of Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Dr Harold Demuren, explained that the pilot of the aircraft took precautionary steps to land the plane.

He confirmed that the aircraft had low pressure in the tyres in the under carriage.

Posted by admin on Sep 30 2012. Filed under Aviation, Headlines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry