Aircraft, passengers’ lives exposed to danger at Kaduna airport –Reps

Nigeria’s House of Representatives has branded Kaduna International Airport as unsafe and said that both aircraft and passengers’ lives are exposed to danger.

Members stated this during the plenary of the House on Thursday, adding that the airport has no safety standards for both domestic and international flights.

The chairman, Committee on Media Loan, Aids and Debt Management Adeyinka Ajayi, condemning the state of things in the airport, told the House that safety standards are not being followed at the airport.

He said, “God forbid that an aircraft drops from the skies due to our own errors. This is what we should not pray to happen, it can happen to anyone.”

According to Ajayi, a visit to the airport showed that aircraft manoeuvring and parking space is inadequate to accommodate the high number of aircraft currently operating at the airport.

He told the House how he personally witnessed where aviation fuel was discharged from haulage trucks into an aircraft without purification.

In collaboration with Ajayi, the chairman, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Mrs Nnenna Ukeje said that the space made available for passengers and parking of aircraft was inadequate and could lead to accidents.

“The lives of passengers and aircraft are being exposed to danger at the airport,” Mrs Ukeje said, recalling how she spent several hours after landing at the airport trying to access her luggage.

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“The Kaduna airport experiment has obviously failed,” she said.

As if that was not enough, Hassan Saleh lent more voice to the condemnation of the airport. He said it is a total failure adding that “disaster is eminent”.

He said, “Security in the airport is very poor, you can obviously see that security personnel are being overwhelmed by the crowd.”

The lawmakers had less than a month ago passed a resolution supporting the Kaduna Airport to serve as an alternative while repairs are ongoing at the Abuja airport.

For the three weeks Kaduna Airport has served as an alternative to Abuja Airport, Ethiopian airline is the only foreign airline currently operating flights to the airport.

Others have refused to operate at the airport despite government appeals.

 

 

 

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