Posted by Reuters on
Nigeria closed its main Lagos Airport for four hours on Tuesday to patch potholes on its sole functional runway, aviation officials said, days after a Lufthansa aircraft ran into a hole on the tarmac.
Nigeria closed its main Lagos Airport for four hours on Tuesday to patch potholes on its sole functional runway, aviation officials said, days after a Lufthansa aircraft ran into a hole on the tarmac.
The incident involving a Lufthansa A330-300 plane on Saturday was the latest in a string of mishaps on the domestic runway, which has been used for all local and international flights since October when the international runway was shut for repair.
"The domestic runway has been closed for minor repairs, there are some cracks on it that need to be refilled," Adamu Abdullahi, a spokesman for the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria said.
"The runway has been overused, for the past 10 months it has it has been under enormous pressure because of the resurfacing of the international runway which should be completed around October," he said.
The airport authority said the partially repaired international runway was temporarily opened to emergency landings on Tuesday to cover for the closure of the domestic runway, which was due to reopen on Tuesday afternoon.
The Lufthansa aircraft skidded off the runway on Saturday after one of its tires burst when it ran into a hole, but passengers and crew were unhurt, aviation officials said.
Following the incident, British Airways decided to divert its London flight from Lagos to Abuja on Sunday as a safety measure, aviation officials added.
Earlier this month, an Air France Airbus with 196 passengers ploughed into a herd of cattle on landing at Port Harcourt Airport in southeast Nigeria, killing six cattle.
In June, at least two domestic airlines crash-landed at Lagos Airport due to poor navigational and communication facilities, although no-one was killed, experts said.
(Reuters)