Delta Air: How passengers escaped death in emergency landing … Five seriously injured as NCAA launches probe

At least five Atlanta-bound passengers sustained injuries after the airplane made an emergency landing at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos on Tuesday. One of the engines of the Delta Airlines flight developed a problem mid-air.

This is as the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, has vowed to investigate cause of the emergency landing. The Delta Airlines flight 55 which took off around 10:50 pm on Tuesday, made an air return less than an hour later due to an engine fault.

The pilot announced the evacuation of all the passengers on board within 90 seconds, after contacting the control towers when the left engine of the aircraft caught fire. In a statement by the United States carrier’s media consultant in Nigeria, Mr Tope Awe, the airline said the flight 55 from Lagos to Atlanta, which took off around 10:50pm, returned to the Murtala Muhammed International Airport less than an hour later.

“The A330-200 had a problem with one of its two engines. The flight landed safely and passengers were evacuated onto the runway down emergency slides,” the statement read. The airline noted that “airport fire crews met the plane as it landed.” The company, which promised to rebook the passengers on a flight, yesterday said: “The safety of Delta’s customers and crew members is always our top priority.” It also added that the injuries sustained by the passengers were “non-critical.” NCAA investigates cause

Meanwhile, the General Manager, Public Relations, NCAA, Mr Sam Adurogboye, disclosed that NCAA had been notified of the incident, stressing that it was the duty of regulatory authority to investigate such occurrences in order to ascertain what led to it. Adurogboye noted that the pilot acted in accordance with the Standard and Recommended Practices, SARPs, by making an air return immediately the left engine of the aircraft caught fire in-flight. In his remarks, the Director General of NCAA, Captain Muhkar Usman, yesterday said the incident will be investigated by Nigeria’s Accident Investigation Bureau, AIB, which will work with their American counterpart. Usman said:

I have been at the site as NCAA and the AIB was also there and from what we saw it is a serious incident and by ICAO standards and also in line with the Act that set up the AIB, they will be investigating the accident to determine the cause and also make safety recommendations to prevent same from happening again.” Vanguard