Passengers stranded as plane overshoots runway

Okechukwu Nnodim, Abuja

Many air travellers were stranded at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja on Thursday morning after an aircraft overshot the runway of the NAIA and disrupted flight operations on the facility.

It was gathered that the aircraft, a Gulfstream 4 belonging to Skybird, overshot the runway on Wednesday night and got stuck on the runway.

Impeccable sources at the NAIA told our correspondent that the aircraft landed through Runway 22 and was stuck on the Runway Safety Area.

“The RESA is about 30 meters from Runway 22 end, and the incident happened at about 10.20pm local time yesterday (Wednesday),” one of the sources, who pleaded not to be named due to the sensitive nature of the matter, said.

“The runway surface was wet at the time of the incident,” another source stated.

The incident disrupted flight operations at the NAIA, a development that made a lot of passengers to be stranded at the Abuja airport on Thursday.

The spokesperson for the NAIA, Voke Ivbaze, said the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria was aware of the development.

“FAAN will officially react to it in due course. Please hold on,” she told our correspondent.

Punch