Moroccan plane makes emergency landing in Lagos

A Moroccan national airline plane on Thursday made an emergency landing at the Lagos airport a few minutes after taking off, following a bird strike on one of its engines. The Royal Air Maroc Boeing aircraft, which departed the Murtala Muhammed Airport in the morning, came back to land after about 10 minutes in the air, airport officials said. The officials said there were about 126 passengers in the aircraft, excluding the flight and cabin crew members. Officials of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, who spoke under condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak on the matter, said the pilot contacted the Lagos control tower, requesting for an emergency landing, which was quickly granted by the Air Traffic Controllers on duty. Shortly after landing, the passengers disembarked safely and were later taken to a hotel pending when another aircraft would be made available to airlift them to the Northern African country. Efforts to get officials of the airline to comment on the matter did not yield any result. The aircraft was still on ground at the Lagos airport as at the time of filing this report. The General Manager, NAMA, Mr. Supo Atobatele, was not available for comments. His mobile telephones were switched off when our correspondent made calls to his line. Air Morocco operates four flights to Lagos weekly on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Aircraft have suffered bird strikes around Lagos airport several times lately. A few weeks ago, a Medview Airlines' Boeing plane encountered bird strike at the airport shortly after taking off for Abuja. The plane returned to base safely. A couple of months ago, a Dana Air plane also suffered a bird strike at Lagos airport. Punch