Bad weather forces Abuja bound British Airways to divert to Lagos

A British Airways’ Abuja bound flight early this morning made a diversion to Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, following bad weather.

Flight diversions are necessary procedure in aviation whenever the flight crew feels there is a need to do so, to save passengers and aircraft.

Civil aviation permits that just as flight crew are trained to take safe precautionary measures during flight operations.

Aviation Metric gathered that the diversion happened some minutes to 5am when the aircraft was making its descent to the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.

Sensing the change of weather, it was learnt that the captain decided to choose Lagos to land the aircraft.

However, the passengers could not be flown back to Abuja because of crew time that had elapsed, forcing the airline to accommodate the passengers in Sheraton Hotel, Lagos, pending when they would be airlifted to Abuja.

Meanwhile, passengers in Abuja booked on an 8am flight to London are currently stranded as the situation has been communicated to the passengers.

Regional Commercial Manager Nigeria & Ghana at British Airways, Mrs. Adetutu Otuyalo, confirmed the situation to our correspondent, attributing the diversion to bad weather.

She also stated that the inability to airlift the passengers to their destination after weather became good to land much later to crew time which had elapsed, adding that British Airways takes safety seriously in line with their standard operating practice.

…..Details later

Wole Shadare