A Dana Airline Boeing (Douglas) MD-83 flying from Uyo in Akwa Ibom State to Lagos was forced to make an emergency landing in Port Harcourt yesterday after crew members detected a fuel leak, SaharaReporters has learned.
The pilot of the flight, J 334, reportedly announced shortly after departure that a massive leak had been detected and that the aircraft was being diverted to the nearest airport so that engineers could take a look at the problem.
The aircraft safely landed shortly after the announcement. A few minutes after engineers at the airport checked the aircraft the crew members decided to proceed to Lagos as it was detected that the problem was linked to the sloppiness of ground crew in Uyo who had failed to properly screw on the cap on one of the fuel tanks.
A number of reluctant passengers agreed to continue with the flight to Lagos, where the flight landed safely. The aircraft is back in service.
Dana Airline is mostly remembered for a catastrophic crash of one its MD 83 jetliners into a Lagos suburb in June 2012, killing 153 people.