Overland Airways Plane Avoids Crash

An air disaster averted was yesterday evening as a local airline, Overland Airways’ aircraft, developed faults few minutes to take off from the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport, NAA, Abuja to Ibadan Airport Saturday Mirror reports.

It was gathered that the aircraft, which was scheduled to depart the airport at 4pm was delayed by the engineers of the airline due to some technical problems.

Saturday Mirror's correspondent gathered that passengers noticed that the engineers of the aircraft were battling to effect some repairs in the aircraft and at exactly 4:45pm when the aircraft was preparing to take, a big smoke emanated from either its cockpit or the engine area.

The big smoke, it was gathered, led to pandemonium among the passengers as they all scampered for safety from the aircraft. A source said that among the passengers on board was Senator Adedibu and many other dignitaries.

 Attempts to get the side of the airline were abortive as the mobile phone number of the spokesman was switched off permanently.

As at the time of filing this report, the passengers were still in Abuja as the airline said it was deploying another aircraft from Ilorin to airlift them to Ibadan.

The industry regulator, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, confirmed the development.

Its spokesman, Mr. Fan Ndubuoke, said he was already working on a press statement, but as at the time of filing this report, he was yet to do so.

Source: National Mirror