A statement made by United Nigeria Airlines over the diversion of its Abuja-bound flight to Asaba, Delta state has been rebutted by the minister of aviation, Festus Keyamo.
It can be recalled that on Saturday, a United Nigeria flight headed for Abuja landed in Asaba.
Reacting to the incident, United Nigeria in a statement said the flight was diverted to Asaba due to bad weather in Abuja.
“A United Nigeria Airlines flight, NUA 0504, operating from the MM@ in Lagos enroute Abuja on Sunday, November 26, 2023, was temporarily diverted to the Asaba International Airport due to poor destination weather,” the airline said.
However, speaking after meeting with aviation regulators on Monday over safety concerns in the aviation industry, Keyamo said there was no bad weather in Abuja, adding that the diversion was purely an administrative issue in United Nigeria.
He revealed that the ministry listened to the communication between the tower to the pilot, as released by the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA).
Keyamo maintained that the tower kept asking the pilot to confirm again that the plane was heading to Abuja, not Asaba — the pilot replied that he was going to Asaba.
“It was clear that when the pilot was taking off from Lagos, he was headed to Asaba, not Abuja,”
“Whereas the flight was headed to Abuja. There was no weather problem in Abuja. It was a question of a wet lease where the pilot and the crew were all foreigners, not Nigerians”, Keyamo said.
|The Cable News
