Chartered Aircraft Not Denied Landing Right at Gombe Airport

The attention of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria has been drawn to a mischievous and obviously misleading story in some sections of the media alleging that a chartered aircraft conveying some officials of the All Progressive Congress (APC) to Gombe was denied landing right at the Gombe Airport on Thursday, December 2, 2014 by officials of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria.

The fact is that Gombe Airport is not a 24hour airport which means that the airport's runway is not open for flight operations, both scheduled and unscheduled, for 24 hours and a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) to that effect is well known to concerned stakeholders in the industry.

With the permission of the control tower, maintenance and security surveillance operations take place on the runway at periods when the runway is not active. This is a standard practice in the industry. One of such operations was taking place on the airport's runway in the morning of Thursday, December 2, 2014 and unfortunately the fire truck used for that operation, belonging to the Gombe State Government, broke down on the runway.

While efforts were being made by our engineering staff to remove the truck from the runway, the control tower at the Gombe Airport was notified of the incident and a new, specific NOTAM was issued by the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), to alert airmen of that incident for the purpose of asking them to stay away from the airport for a specified period of that day, in the overall interest of safety. The fire truck was removed from the runway in less than an hour after the breakdown of the fire truck.

It is still unclear to us why the pilot of that chartered aircraft did not receive the said NOTAM until he got overhead Gombe Airport. This situation is being investigated by relevant authorities in the industry.

It is however unfortunate and sad that a former Minister of the country, who was not conversant with the technicalities of the incident could conclude and cause to be published in the media that the incident was politically motivated.

We hereby ask the general public to discountenance that story and again wish to restate that aviation industry globally is guided strictly by the principle of safety for human lives and no reasonable agency in the industry anywhere in the world, including FAAN would sacrifice precious human lives and professionalism on the altar of politics.

Yakubu Dati

Aviation Spokesman