By CrossRiverWatch admin
Hundreds of passengers today escaped death as Aero Contractors flight from Lagos to Calabar was diverted to Port Harcourt due to what the Calabar Airport Manager, Mr. Sani described as bad weather.
The 4pm flight which was supposed to land in Calabar by 5pm could not land after coming low, according to eyewitnesses in Calabar and was later diverted to the Port Harcourt airport to avert any danger.
While some of the passengers who reached out to CrossRiverWatch alleged that the divertion was due to navigational instrument failure, a staff of Aero who spoke to our reporter as well as the Airport Manager debunked the claim and said it was bad weather.
According to the Aero staff who did not want to be named, “Yes, there was a small issue that caused our plane not to land this evening. The weather was too bad and I think the most reasonable thing to do was to land elsewhere. I think the bad weather even extended to Uyo because of the rains so the pilot had to head for Port Harcourt. It is in no way related to any navigational equipment.” said the staff.
According to Mr. Sani the Calabar Airport Manager, he told CrossRiverWatch that, “It has been raining very heavily in Calabar for days now and it has affected visibility badly which made the weather risky for landing. The pilot actually intended to land like that but we thought it was not safe to do that since visibility was not good, that is why he was directed to Port Harcourt.
“The equipment in this airport are all in good shape. Some of them are even new because renovation work in the airport is even still ongoing so there is no issue about failure of equipment. If that was the case, we will tell you people so that government can intervene and fix it but honestly the issue was weather and not equipment related.” He said.