Yola airport shut to air traffic as faulty airplane blocks runway

Inward or outward-bound flights have been banned at the Yola International Airport since Sunday night following a minor incident on the runway.

Reports indicate that on Sunday night, the tyres of an airplane ruptured in motion as it was attempting to leave the airport causing a traffic situation.

A Max Air plane was reported to be taxiing for takeoff when it experienced a tyre burst, forcing it to come to a standstill on the runway, blocking other planes from either taking off from the airport or landing.

The Max Air flight which was carrying 119 passengers with six crew members had been cleared to take off from the Yola airport en-route Abuja when the ground incident affecting all its tyres happened.

The Assistant General Manager in charge of Corporate Communications of the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, Mrs Ijeoma Nwosu-Igbo who disclosed this over the phone Monday afternoon, said the faulty aircraft would be removed soon.

She could not immediately say when the removal would be effected.

A different source, at the Yola airport, however, said during the filing of this report just before 5pm Monday, that engineers had arrived at the airport to fix the faulty plane.