All in-bound flights were diverted to other airports while flights scheduled to take off were cancelled on Tuesday night after a power surge damaged the Air Field Lighting (AFL), including taxi and runway lights, at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Nigeria’s capital city of Abuja, the local press reported Wednesday.
“Technically, the outage has to do with Airfield Lighting. None of the AFL is working this (Tuesday) night at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport. But we are trying to rectify it,” a source at the airport was quoted as saying.
“The management of AFL was recently transferred to the National Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) and the transition process is having some technical teething problems,” the source said.
Another source was quoted as saying: “Since last week, we (have) sent Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) about the problem with Airfield Lighting in Abuja which might take three weeks to correct. So, all airlines were in the picture.”
The airport, one of Nigeria’s main gateways, has been experiencing lighting problems in recent times.
Last month, a blackout occurred at the airport as a British Airways flight from London was about to land. The Minister of Power, Barth Nnaji, immediately ordered a probe into the incident.
