Five persons have been reported injured after an Atlanta- bound Delta Airline Flight DL 055(Atl) ETD which took off from the international wing of the Murtala Muhammed Airport aborted a flight Tuesday night.
Delta officials said its flight took off from the airport around 10:50pm local time on Tuesday.
The flight had only been in the air for a little less than an hour and a half, and had only traveled 29 of its roughly 5,800-mile journey, before one of the A330-200’s two engines reported issues.
It was gathered that one of the aircraft engines caught fire thereby forcing the pilot to return to the airport for an emergency landing.
Consequently, Runway 18R of the airport was closed to traffic while Runway 18L was made available for international departures on request with contingency measures in place.
The airline’s office in Lagos said in a statement that the flight landed safely and customers exited the aircraft on the runway via emergency slides.
“Delta is aware of five customers reporting non-critical injuries as a result of the evacuation. Delta teams have provided overnight hotel accommodations to customers and will rebook customers on an alternate Delta aircraft Wednesday afternoon. The safety of Delta’s customers and crew members is always our top priority,” said the airline.
A source said the remaining casualty-free passengers were later taken to a hotel after the flight was announced cancelled and rescheduled
Also a special report from a Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) source on the flight DL 055(Atl) ETD 22:45hrs involving the A330-200 with reg. mark N858NW, explained that “although there is no death recorded, quite a number of crew and passenger casualties were recorded and have been taken to Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) Ikeja, Air Force Base Clinic, and Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN (medical centre for speedy medical attention.”
It further stated: “The flight which initially pushed back at 22:40hrs had Air Return /Emergency landing at 23:16hrs, when the pilot in command (PIC) announced the evacuation of all the passengers on board within 90seconds, after contacting the Control Towers because the left Engine of the Aircraft was said to have caught Fire mid-air into the flight.”
“Passengers were being evacuated via the emergency sliding door within few seconds. All Airport agencies officials, including aviation security (AVSEC) of FAAN, NCAA-CPOS, FAAN fire service, Port health and aviation clinic, Quarantine, NDLEA among others on duty were on ground within few minutes that the emergency alarm was announced.”
It was gathered that the aircraft was still on the Runway for over one hour which led to its closure before KLM, Lufthansa and Air France departed afterwards.
It was also learnt that the aircraft was later towed with a push back truck to the open parking bay close to Boarding gate E 63.
