A passenger’ Account of How Overland Airways Escaped Air mishap

More facts have emerged about the near air-mishap involving an aircraft belonging to Overland Airline, which caught fire mid-air on Wednesday.

One of the passengers in the aircraft, who spoke to us exclusively on the incident, revealed that the whole drama started on board shortly before they got to Ibadan, Oyo State.

He revealed that save for the experience of the pilot, the aircraft would have crash, saying that tension and confusion took over as the passengers had thought that the worse could happen.

The passenger narrated that the pilot flew from Ibadan on one engine, adding that “he shut down the second one or may be it shut down on its own when it became too hot and then we started perceiving smoke, and shortly before descending, we saw fire by the wings!  how we escaped  was a big miracle.”

According to him, the passengers were already crying and praying, while the pilot was making contact with airport for emergency landing, thereby averting  what could have thrown the nation to another mourning mood.

“The Pilot was good. One of the air hostesses started crying as soon as we landed, but she was calm on board. We thank God that everything ended with thanksgiving, only God saved us from what could have been a tragedy,” he said.

We gathered that the aircraft was obviously overused and sources said that it was due for servicing.

The aircraft reportedly came to Ilorin from Abuja in the morning and barely spent time on ground before it took off to Abuja via Lagos again as against that standard of leaving the aircraft to cool down for a reasonable period.

The  four-member flight crew of Overland Airways made a successful landing of a distressed aircraft on the Runway 18R of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos after the plane’s engine caught fire mid-air on Wednesday evening.

The ATR 42 aircraft, which has 37 passengers on board, was en-route Ilorin-Lagos when the plane suddenly developed a major fault.

The pilots had sent out a distress signal to the Lagos control tower.

The Lagos airport control tower consequently put the airport emergency response team, including the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria’s fire services department, on notice, following the Mayday.

The pilot finally landed the faulty plane safely on the international airport’s runway amid a fully prepared airport emergency response team.

The aircraft’s registration number is 5N-BRQ.

Overland later issued a statement confirming the incident.

The statement partly reads, “Overland Airways wishes to inform the general public that its flight OF1188 from Ilorin to Lagos experienced an unusual high turbine temperature on one of its engines today, Wednesday, June 15, 2022 around 7:50pm.

“This occurred in the approach phase of flight and the aircraft landed very safely as the crew skillfully implemented their standard procedures for such abnormal situations.

“All 33 passengers remained calm through the process and safely disembarked row by row in accordance with post-COVID-19 procedures after the aircraft came to a halt on the Murtala Mohammed International Airport Lagos runway 18 Right. No passenger was hurt in any way.

“Overland Airways salutes the professional interventions of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority and the Accident Investigation Bureau Nigeria (AIB-N) which were very prompt and reassuring.

“Overland Airways regrets any inconvenience to its passengers and assures the travelling public of its full commitment to the safety of its services and passengers.”