The Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau has disclosed that the private jet which landed on a road under construction near Asaba Airport in Delta State had first aborted its initial landing before making another approach that ended on the wrong surface.
The bureau made this known in a preliminary report released on Friday on the June 10 incident involving a Bombardier Challenger 601-3A aircraft, registered as N989BC and operated by VMO Aero Limited.
According to the report, the aircraft departed Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos for Asaba under Instrument Flight Rules and, after abandoning its first approach, attempted a second landing on Runway 11.
The NSIB said the flight crew believed they were correctly aligned with the airport’s published RNAV Runway 11 approach, as indicated by the aircraft’s navigation system.
However, instead of landing on the airport runway, the aircraft touched down on a newly constructed road located close to the airport.
The bureau said there were seven people on board the aircraft, comprising four crew members and three passengers, and that no injuries were recorded.
After the aircraft came to a stop, it was shut down and inspected before the passengers disembarked safely.
The report added that the aircraft later departed from the road and returned to Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos without further operational problems, although a post-flight inspection revealed damage to its left nose-wheel assembly.
The NSIB said its preliminary findings were based on information obtained from the flight crew, witnesses, air traffic control records, operational documents, examination of the aircraft, and data recovered from the Cockpit Voice Recorder and Flight Data Recorder.
It added that the recorders had been retrieved and analysed at the bureau’s Transport Safety Laboratory in Abuja, while technical examinations and further investigations into the incident were still ongoing.
The latest report comes weeks after the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, dismissed claims that the aircraft suffered a mechanical fault. He had said the pilots mistakenly landed on a road that resembled a runway after air traffic controllers lost visual contact with the aircraft.
The NSIB stressed that investigations are continuing and noted that the preliminary report only presents facts gathered so far and does not assign blame or determine the cause of the incident.
