U-23 team were never in danger of air accident- Arik
The management of Air Air has said that the purported incident involving Arik Air’s Sunday Accord-Banjul flight which had the national U-23 team on board was not the true pictures of what transpired.
A statement signed by the spokesperson of the airline, Banji Ola explained that the U-23 team and other passengers on board the aircraft were never in danger of an air accident.
Banji noted that against the reports in the dailies, none of the aircraft in question lost a tyre on landing in Accra and neither did any of the planes lose an engine.
He stated further that,” the aircraft that was conveying the team to Banjul had a stopover in Accra, Ghana. On ground Accra, the Captain, while on routine walk around the aircraft as part of the airline’s safety procedure, noticed that one of the tyres had a low pressure (not flat). Instead of keeping the team in Accra longer than necessary, we had to deploy another aircraft that was on a night-stop in Accra to take the team to Banjul. The Captain of this aircraft was airborne when he had to make an air return due to a gear pin in-situ”.
He explained further that the airline”s standard operating procedure required the aircraft to be re-certified by their maintenance partner, Lufthansa Technik before it could continue with the flight to Banjul.
“We then had to fly in Lufthansa engineers from Lagos to change the low pressure wheel on the original operating aircraft for it to fly the team and other passengers to Banjul. The other aircraft were also examined and released back to servicel”, Banji said.
He emphasised that the safety of passengers is paramount in their operations, adding that Arik Air will not compromise this for anything.
According to Arik Spokesperson, the Nigeria Football Federation has already issued a statement to correct the erroneous impression that the team nearly had an air crash.
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