The international wing of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, was shut temporarily on Thursday morning after a corpse of a man was found on its runway (18R).
This was disclosed by an official of the airport, who preferred anonymity.
According to her, it could not be ascertained the cause of the death of the man, whose identity was not known as at Thursday evening.
What the source is saying about Incident
She said, “The runway was temporarily shut down while a team of officials from the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria and the Nigeria Police Force evacuated the corpse from the runway. The shutdown affected some international flights from landing and taking off from the airport’s terminal.
“One of the flights that could not land due to the shutdown was an Ethiopian Airlines flight 3907, a Boeing 77F aircraft with registration number ETAVN, which was coming from Lome, Togo to Lagos, Nigeria. It was diverted back to Lome after holding for a while.”
What this means
- The development could be interpreted as a breach of security in the nation’s flagship airport, hence a need for proper investigation to unveil how the man got to such a sensitive part of the airport.
- There is also a need to examine the issue of houses that have been built too close to the Lagos airport, as the rule says no building should be situated less than six metres from the airport structure or fence.
What you should know
- It is important to note that there have been a couple of airport security breaches in recent times.
- On December 21, 2021, a mishap was averted at the airside of the Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos some months ago when a speeding vehicle had a near collision with a Dana Air plane taxiing to take off on Runway 18L of the airport.
- The mishap occurred barely one week after a landing Max Air jet almost rammed into a malfunctioning car being tested on Runway 18L.
- Also, there was pandemonium at the airside of the Lagos airport on December 27, 2019, when an unidentified man found his way into the airside mysteriously and mounted a moving Air Peace plane.
