US bound aircraft belonging to DELTA airline lost one of its engines to fire about one hour after take off from the Murtala Mohammed International airport, Lagos.
The aircraft bound for Atlanta which took off from the airport at about 10.30pm made an emergency air return after the engine incident.
All hands were on deck to ensure nothing on toward happened after the emergency call was made by the pilots to the air traffic control.
All passengers on board were said to have been successfully evacuated on landing however, five of the were injured.
In an interview the Director General, Nigeria Civil Aviation, NCAA, Captain Muhtar Usman said investigation were on by the Accident Investigation Bureau, AIB to find out the cause of the engine fire, whether minor or serious.
” Officials of the AIB are there investigating, if it is serious, the AIB will be working with the US National Transportation Safety board, NTSB”.
According to a source in the NCAA who reported what happened said, the flight which initially pushed back at 22:40hrs had Air Return /Emergency landing at 23:16hrs, when the pilot in command (PIC) announced the evacuation of all the passengers on board within 90seconds, after contacting the Control Towers because the left Engine of the Aircraft was said to have caught Fire mid air in-flight.
Passengers were being evacuated via the emergency sliding door within few seconds.
All Airport agencies Officials on duty were on ground within few minutes that the emergency alarm was announced including AVSEC, NCAA-CPOS, FAAN FIRE SERVICE, PORT HEALTH AND AVIATION CLINIC, QUARANTINE, NDLEA ETC.
Although there is no death recorded as at filing this report but quite a number of crew and passenger Casualties were recorded and have been taken to LASUTH IKEJA, AIR FORCE BASE CLINIC, and FAAN MEDICAL CENTRE for speedy medical attention.
Meanwhile, the Delta Aircraft was still on the Runway for over 1hr which led to it’s closure before KLM, LUFTHANSA and AIR FRANCE to depart afterwards.
The aircraft was later towed with a push back truck to the open parking bay close to Boarding gate E 63.
However the remaining Casualty – free passengers were later taken to Hotel after the flight was announced cancelled and rescheduled for a date yet to be specified and communicated ; but CPOs are still monitoring to get any further updates in due course
