Minister of Power Professor Barth Nnaji was among the over 200 passengers, who were stranded for over an hour inside the London-Abuja bound British Airways aircraft after its landing Saturday around morning due to power outage at the Abuja airport.
According to one of the passengers,
Nnaji was among the first class passengers of the British Airways X3
aircraft when the incident happened. The passenger, who didn’t want to be named, explained that they had a smooth flight from London until
they landed at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport.
“We touched down just some few minutes
to 5am. Just as we are taxing to the parking lot, the light at the
terminal building went off and there was total darkness,” he said.
He explained that, “after about five to
ten minutes, the pilot announced to us that we can’t disembark from the
plane because of power failure at the airport. We were frazzled by that
development, particularly after that long trip. “About 30 minutes later,
the pilot made another announcement saying that the airport authorities
couldn’t fix the light therefore, we should remain inside the plane
till day break.”
The passenger added that the pilot
explained that “it was better to remain inside the aircraft since there
is air-conditioning system, adding that even if we disembark, there was
darkness at the terminal. He said that the passengers remained inside
the aircraft for 1:25 minutes. But the Minister of Power, our source
said, decided to maintain “an embarrassing silence” while the incident
lasted. “After the light was restored, he just disembarked and slipped
away,” our source said.
The spokesperson of Federal Aviation
Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) Mr Akin Olukunle earlier attributed the
incident to “technical failure.” A staff of the British Airways, who was
on duty at the airport when the incident occurred, said that after the
power outage, they contacted officials of Power Holding Company of
Nigeria (PHCN), but they could not fix the problem and the airport’s
standby generator was faulty.
Culled from The Daily Trust
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THIS is a job well done by all press workers who were involved in publishing this, we as a government have shamed ourselves enough following a decaying civilization without thinking towards alternative ways.The word is ALTER NATIVE e.g Local palm torches for our International busstop sorry Airport
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