Thunderstorm destroys Enugu airport terminal building

A heavy thunderstorm destroyed the terminal building, pilot lounge and General Aviation Terminal (GAT) of the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu.
 
Spokesperson for the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Mrs. Henrietta Yakubu in a statement said the destruction also affected electric power lines to the airport, FAAN staff secondary and primary school buildings and private residential buildings.
 
She stated that a very heavy thunder storm occurred at Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu in the early hours of yesterday, destroying some parts of the airport terminal building and pilot lounge and General Aviation Terminal.
 enugu
Aside that, it also affected electric power lines to the airport, FAAN staff secondary and primary school buildings and private residential buildings.
 
She said however, FAAN management took immediate remedial action which allowed flight operations in and out of the airport and doing everything to restore normalcy.  
 
According to her, “There was no loss of life or injury and also flight operations were not affected in the Airport. The Management regrets the inconveniences caused by this incident to airport users and the general public.
 
Last month, for three days, the radar system at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport, Abuja refused to work after thunderstorm and lightening that occurred.
 The thunderstorm and lightening disrupted radar activities at Abuja Total Radar Coverage of Nigeria (TRACON) site.
To rectify the situation, the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) engineers went to work immediately to ascertain the extent of damage done.
A report of the incident also showed that some other accessories were also burnt or mis-configured by the thunderstorm, like network time protocol, encoder.
 
Some accessories were restored immediately. According to the report, the critical nature of the fault had never been experienced by the engineers as the monitoring system at Kano and Lagos indicated no faults.
 
Yet, the tracks were not received by Kano and Lagos systems. This requires careful analysis, diagnoses and if possible, surgery on the equipment.
Wole Shadare