Ilorin airport closed, as Air Peace crash lands after burst tyre

The runway of the Ilorin Airport, Kwara State was on Friday shut down after a near tragic incident.

A plane in the fleet of Air Peace had a burst tyre, as it came in for landing, causing the plane to crash land.

Reports indicate that AIB Safety investigators did an evaluation of the occurrence and decided NOT to investigate further, having being satisfied that there was no danger.

The Aeroplane has been released to the operating airline, but sources say the delay in opening the Airport is down to the recovery of the Aeroplane from the Runway by FAAN and Airpeace.

Ripples Nigeria gathered that many passengers, including some highly-placed Nigerians, narrowly escaped death.

All flights to Ilorin have also been canceled until the evacuation of the plane.

Air Peace only recently began operation from Ilorin Airport on June 16.

According to reports, the aircraft crashed around 9.30am on Friday morning upon landing in Ilorin from Abuja.

The plane’s burst tyre affected the cabin with luggage falling on passengers.

It was gathered that with the impact of the crash, the plane could not taxi to the tarmac.

In the last 24 hours, the runway of the airport had been closed to traffic.

READ ALSO: Ilorin airport records 85,826 passengers, 2,628 aircraft movement in 2018 – Official

But all the traumatised passengers were successfully evacuated from the runway.

A source who spoke to the press explained that the process of moving the plane from the runway was slow because, “it is a bigger aircraft and we have no equipment.

”We are in the process of removing the aircraft. We have been on it for 24 hours,” the source added.

But the Federal Aviation Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and other agencies offered to keep the incident under wraps.

“We were directed to manage the situation,” the source said.

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