by Akan Ido

A power cut at the Akwa Ibom Airport  yesterday disrupted the planned landing of an Arik Air aircraft barely 500 meters from the tarmac.

The outage reportedly forced the pilot to regain altitude and hover around for about half an hour before flying back to Abuja. The airport official saddled with the responsibility of putting on the alternative power supply was said to be unavailable.

Read the ChannelsTV report below:

The passengers on Arik Flight W3 533, including the Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Chidi odinkalu, and some unnamed federal lawmakers, said to be heading to Uyo for a retreat.

Mr Odinkalu confirmed the incident to Premium Times. Contacted on the telephone early this morning, he said, “Thank God we survived. If it had been a rainy night with thunderstorm, anything could have happened to us. Some people need to answer questions over that incident.”

The flight, originally scheduled for 6:25 pm, left Abuja at about 7 pm. It returned to Abuja at 9: 35 pm. after hovering in the sky for over 30 minutes in expectation that authorities at the Uyo airport would be able to light the runway to enable it to land.

This incident appears to confirm reports of probes by aviation authorities into air crashes in the country which have blamed most of them on avoidable human errors.

The Nigeria’s Aviation Investigation Bureau (AIB) had in some of its reports blamed avoidable human errors and dereliction of duty by public officials working in the aviation sector as major reasons for the loss of hundreds of lives in air crashes in Nigeria.

The bureau, which is saddled with the responsibility of investigating air accidents in the country, stated these in its reports after the crashes involving two airlines, Sky Executive Aviation Services (SEAS) and Sosoliso airline in 2002 and 2005 respectively.

Some of the human errors identified by the AIB as causes of plane crashes include non-lightening of runways and airfields (as it happened last night), poorly constructed drainage culverts, inaccurate information by the control tower, lack of proper certification of radio operators and poor supervision of aircraft imported into the country.