Flight operations at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos have been crippled as an aircraft, which reportedly had a burst tyre on landing blocked the runway, preventing takeoff or landing of other aircraft.
Thousand of passengers, who were billed to travel this night are currently stranded at the airport, as the only runway that serves the International airport is blocked.
Armadanews checks revealed that the incident happened in the afternoon but as of 10pm, the runway was yet to be cleared as the authorities at the airport including staff of the accident and emergency unit have not removed the aircraft from the runway.
Passengers whose flights were billed for 8pm were still waiting at the airport as of the time of filling this report.
Some of the aggrieved travellers blamed the government and airport authorities for providing only one runway for such a very busy airport.
They said that despite the huge amounts allocated for airport expansions and repairs, successive administrations at the airport have not carried out any major work at the airport.
“The staff of accident and emergency unit were no where to be found since afternoon when this incident happened”, some of the passengers lamented.
KLM, British Airways, African World were among airlines grounded last night as they were unable to take off owing to the problem.
Also, aircraft arriving Nigeria from other countries were also unable to land because the runway was blocked.
Details later…