An incident involving the plane occurred at the Kwara capital around 10am on Friday, July 23.
One of the major airlines in Nigeria, Air Peace, has explained what went wrong with its Ilorin-bound B737-500 aircraft with registration number 5N-BQR from Abuja which was reported to have crashed.
An incident involving the plane occurred at the Kwara capital around 10am on Friday, July 23.
A statement on Saturday by the management said there was no accident.
It explained that the aircraft in question landed safely but had a tyre burst while taxing.
The plane neither crashed nor crash-landed, Air Peace clarified.
“This kind of sensationalism was intended to cause panic in the minds of the flying public,” it reads.
The company said the incident was duly reported to the authorities and passengers disembarked seamlessly.
The statement added that the tyres had been fixed and the aircraft was intact.
SaharaReporters had earlier today reported that many passengers, including some highly placed Nigerians, narrowly escaped death after an aircraft belonging to one of the major airlines crashed upon landing in Ilorin, Kwara State, from Abuja. [story_link align="left"]96874[/story_link]
According to the Nation, the plane had a tyre burst and a bang which affected the cabin with luggage falling on passengers.
It was gathered that with the impact of the crash, the plane could not taxi to the tarmac.
It added that in the last 24 hours, the runway of the airport had been closed to traffic.
But all the traumatised passengers were successfully evacuated from the runway.
It was learnt that the process of moving the plane from the runway was slow because, according to a source, “it is a bigger aircraft and we have no equipment.
“We are in the process of removing the aircraft. We have been on it for 24 hours,” the source added.
But the Federal Aviation Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and other agencies offered to keep the incident under wraps.
“We were directed to manage the situation,” the source had said.