The operations of the international wing of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, were temporarily shut down, as the mangled corpse was found on Runway 18R of the nation’s flagship airport.
BizWatch Nigeria learnt that the lifeless body was found in the early hours of Thursday, May 19, 2022.
At the time of filing this report, it was yet-to-be-established whether the dead man was knocked down by an aircraft taking off or landing on the runway.
Having discovered the corpse, a team of officials from the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) evacuated the corpse from the runway. Consequently, international flights were prevented from landing and taking off from the airport’s international terminal during the temporary shutdown.
Speaking on the incident, Aviation Security Expert, Captain John Ojikutu, retd called for a thorough investigation, as he wondered how the deceased found his way into the sensitive area of the airport.
While arguing that the perimeter fence of the MMIA is not a security fence, Ojikutu maintained that the incident has exposed the airport to various security breaches.
His words: “The authorities need to investigate how the man got to the airport. Nobody can say much now; but he may have been knocked down by the wingspan or undercarriage of a jumbo jet but it is too early to say anything like that now.
But we need to examine the issue of houses that have been built too close to the Lagos airport. The rule says no building should be situated less than six metres to the airport structure or fence. However, we have seen cases of people crossing the runway before.
“The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and FAAN need to investigate this to ascertain what really happened. They need to find out the flights that landed before that incident. The current airport perimeter fence is not a security fence and we need to do something about it.”
