Airlines, yesterday, made air returns to Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos and other airports across the country after poor visibility, occasioned by harmattan haze, prevented their aircraft from landing in places they were scheduled for.
Visibility reduced to less than 40 metres, which is below weather minima and made it dangerous for aircraft to take off.
The acceptable weather minimum level is 100 meters. Spokesman for Dana Airline, Kingsley Ezeanyanwu, confirmed the incident, saying an aircraft billed for Port Harcourt at 2p.m. took off at 7:20p.m. yesterday when visibility improved.
As a result of this development, a Dana Airline flight from Abuja to Lagos for 2p.m. was aborted about 20 minutes from landing at the Murtala Muhammed Airport 2 (MMA2) and was said to have been told to return to Abuja.
The aircraft eventually landed in Lagos. A Medview Airline flight from Abuja to Lagos was said to have suffered a similar fate.
It was also learnt that a scheduled flight to Sokoto, which was boarded at about 4p.m., eventually failed to depart Abuja as passengers were disembarked about 5p.m.
The passengers on the aborted flight said the airline had earlier announced that they were about 12 minutes away from landing in Kaduna, but shortly announced that they were returning to base because the airport had been shut down due to poor visibility.
Ironically, international airlines were not affected as they landed without stress because of the equipment they carry on their aircraft, which makes their airplanes to land on zero visibility.
Some of the aircraft in operations in Nigeria have the equipment, but they have decided not to take risks and do not want to flout regulations, which have mandated them not to fly within a certain visibility envelope.
Ezeanyanwu said virtually all airlines suffered similar fate because of the terrible weather condition, which made flight operations difficult and dangerous.
He also said that at a point, Lagos airport also witnessed similar fate, as aircraft could not land at the airport due to the situation.
Acting General Manager, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Mrs. Henrietta Yakubu, said that the prevailing weather situation in the country led to flight disruptions, but denied that the Lagos aerodrome was shut to traffic. Hundreds of passengers were stranded at various airports as a result of the situation.
A passenger on Medview who gave her name as Chikodi Smith told New Telegraph that the airline had, prior before boarding, told them that flights could be delayed or cancelled because of the situation, adding that most of them were not surprised at the situation.
She said it was better for airlines to cancel flights if the situation was not conducive for safe flight operation.
Smith said she wanted to travel to Abuja for resumption of work today. Another stranded passenger who gave his name as Adeleye was seen rushing to board his rescheduled Dana flight to Port Harcourt at about 5p.m. Adeleye said he was happy that boarding was announced for his flight, which was supposed to have departed at noon.
An aircraft pilot said landing in zero visibility can be safe, but disclosed that taxiing would be kind of impossible.
“So, a landing with effective zero visibility is only useful if you don’t want to taxi thereafter,” he said. He noted that since there is no taxi guidance,landing in zero visibility is not really possible anywhere.
“Some visibility is always needed (50 m should be the lowest, airport and aircraft equipment permitting) that also gives pilots chance to manually control the roll out in case of localizer failure in that phase,” he said.
Just recently, the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET) warned airline operators against harmattan haze sweeping across the country, saying that the weather condition compels airlines to delay or cancel scheduled flights whenever horizontal visibility falls below the stipulated minimal.
Director-General of NIMET, Dr. Anthony Anuforom, said occasional outbreak of dust, which will reduce horizontal visibility significantly to 1000m and below in some places, was predicted.
He also stated that the expected increase in concentration of the dust particles would lead to colder and drier atmosphere, as well as increase in incidences of respiratory disorder.
In the course of monitoring the weather situation in and outside Nigeria, he said NiMet had observed that in the past 24 hours, dust has been raised over the source regions in Niger/Chad Republic, which will be transported by northeast trade winds into and across the country. He noted that visibility as low as 100m was reported by some stations in the Niger Republic.
New Telegraph
