US Delta airline has apologised to the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) over its failure to notify the government agency of the emergency landing involving its Airbus 330-200 aircraft on Tuesday night.
The Lagos station Manager, Miss Shannon Masters who lead other officials of the airline to the AIB headquarters expressed the airline’s regret for the oversight, stressing that it was not intentional.
“We sincerely apologised for the error and we promise to cooperate with AIB in the investigation of this occurrence.”
We look forward to receiving cooperation from Delta Airlines as we work to determine the cause of this serious incident in the interest of safety.“
The Commissioner AIB, Akin Olateru, while accepting the airline’s apology said the bureau had already commenced investigation into the serious incident and welcome the airline’s cooperation.
The AIB had frowned at the American carrier’s failure to notify it of the serious incident involving its aircraft in line with Nigerian air safety regulations and international practice.
The airline was believed to have notified the United States National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) of the occurrence immediately in line with the US laws.
Nigeria, as the state of occurrence under the International Civil Aviation organisation (ICAO) Annex 13 is responsible for investigating any aircraft occurrences within her airspace. The State of registry of the aircraft and the airline may serve as observers.
On Tuesday, the Atlanta bound Delta Flight 55, which departed Lagos that night returned several minutes later to Murtala Muhammed International Airport following an issue with one of the Airbus 330-200’s two engines.
