An
Overland Airways plane with registration number 5NBPE, which took off
from the Ibadan airport yesterday morning had its wing damaged as it was
approaching the Niger State airspace and had to make a detour to the
Murtala Mohammed Airport, Lagos.
Passengers
onboard were mostly National Conference delegates: they include former
governor of Oyo State, Senator Rashidi Ladoja; a former President of the
Nigerian Union of Journalists, Comrade Lanre Ogundipe; Senators Gbenga
Kaka from Ogun State; Hosea Agboola from Oyo State and Demola Akinlabi,
an officer in the Accountant General of the Federation’s Office; Oyo
State
Commissioner for Information, Prince Gbade Lana and a Federal National Population Commissioner, Abdul-Lateef Gbadamosi.
The
delegates were returning to Abuja to resume plenary at the ongoing
National Conference. The incident was confirmed by the Nigerian Airspace
Management Agency (NAMA) which said that a domestic flight 1170
operated by Overland Airways with an ATR-42 aircraft diverted from
Ibadan enroute Abuja to Lagos early Monday, following a reported cracked
windshield.
After
about 3 hours in Lagos, the passengers were moved into another Overland
aircraft with registration number 5N-BPF which arrived from Enugu.