Nigeria Content Online

The Nigerian Civil
Aviation Authority on Wednesday released a post-incident report on the
5N BMR aircraft conveying the vice presidential candidate, Fola Adeola,
and other top delegates of the Action Congress of Nigeria to Bauchi,
which crash-landed at the airstrip killing two goats.

The incident, which
was described as the “handiwork of saboteurs” by Ibrahim Madibbo, the
party’s national publicity secretary, occurred on Tuesday afternoon at
the airstrip, leaving the aircraft partly damaged with no human
casualty.

“On 8 March 2011
about 12.28pm a chartered HS 125 aircraft with registration number 5N
BMR, operated by Kings Airline, touched down at Bauchi airstrip. While
on landing roll, about eight goats strayed across the runway and the
aircraft hit two of the goats but the captain was able to maintain his
course on the runway centerline and parked the aircraft on the apron,”
said Harold Demuren, the director general of the civil aviation
regulatory agency at the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos.

Mr. Demuren had on
Tuesday given assurance that the authority would investigate the cause
of the incident and make public the outcome of their findings; but the
spokesperson for the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, Akin
Olukunle, when contacted declined comment on the incident.

Mr Demuren disclosed that one of the wings of the aircraft was damaged.

“The post-incident
inspection of the runway and the aircraft revealed that the flap on the
left hand side of the aircraft was damaged and two goats were found
dead,” he said.

Mr. Demuren gave
the name of the pilot in charge of the flight as Captain Wale Salami
and disclosed that he was brave enough to save the day for those
onboard the aircraft during the incident.

“The runway was
closed to traffic at 12.28 local time as part of safety precautionary
measures and reopened at 12.54 local time after inspection and clearing
of the runway of dead animals. There was no injury to six passengers
and three crew members onboard the aircraft,” he said.

It would be
recalled that in 2005, an Air France aircraft crashed-landed into herds
of cattle strolling at the Port Harcourt International Airport, Rivers
State.