Flight operations were brought to a halt on Saturday afternoon at the Port Harcourt International Airport Omagwa, following a near crash incident involving an Air Peace flight from Lagos that overshot the runway on landing.
The Air Peace flight from Lagos which was bound to take passengers from Port Harcourt to Abuja on that Saturday afternoon, was landing at the Port Harcourt airport during a heavy rainfall. The Tide reports that the landing resulted to the skipping of the runway, heading into the bush.
Although there was a timely intervention and rescue operations by officers of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), and other agencies at the airport to rescue passengers, the trauma the incident left on the passengers made them to defy the heavy rainfall to leave the tarmac.
The passengers in the mixed feelings of joy and surprises jumped into the heavy rainfall expressing gratitude to God on their safety.
TheTide observed that dignitaries like the former Head of State, Abdusalami Abubakar and his entourage who wanted to fly back to Abuja, were stranded, as they could not use the airport because of obstruction of the air peace flight on the runway.
The Tide gathered that due process will be followed by the regulatory agencies in the aviation sector to clear the runway before normal flight operations resume, as FAAN was yet to issue a statement on that.
Corlins Walter
