Plane’s gear fails during landing - 88 passengers inside plane

Shola Adekola, Lagos - 07.02.2008

A Lagos-bound Boeing 737 plane was on Wednesday morning involved in an incident. The aircraft, which took off from Abuja Airport at 8.16 a.m., had 88 passengers on board.

According to reports, trouble started when the pilot of the plane, one Captain Taiwo Popoola, discovered that the aircraft’s right landing gear refused to retract in preparation for landing at the Murtala Muhammed Airport.

"On approach to Lagos, the pilot selected to lower the landing gear in preparation for landing as it is normally done, but the right landing gear failed to come."

Following this, the pilot was said to have used his experience by circling round the airport and made a second attempt at landing, "and fortunately, all the landing gear came down and the aircraft landed safely."

While the pilot was struggling to land, passengers were said to have been properly briefed as required by civil aviation regulations which made them to be calm.

The aircraft involved had been taken to the hangar for a thorough check and rectification by inspectors from the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA).