The Nigerian Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) has urged the Federal Government to urgently rehabilitate the Central Taxiway of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos.
NATCA’s President, Mr Victor Eyaru, said on Tuesday in Lagos that the central taxiway had been out of use for more than six years due to abandonment of the reconstruction work on the airport runways.
According to him, this has led to the usage of Eastern taxiway whenever only Runway 18L/36R is available for landing and takeoff.
He noted that this had increased cases of ground incidents by wide bodied aircraft making use of the Eastern taxiway of the airport.
Eyaru said the most recent was at 2045 UTC on July 6, 2015 when an Emirate’s aircraft, B777 flight UAE784, ran into a parked Hak Airline’s aircraft on the apron.
“We call on government to urgently fix this taxiway to prevent avoidable aircraft accidents on ground, and to increase the capacity of the airport.
“We have written to the authorities several times on the need to put the central taxiway in place. As it is now, it is limiting the capacity of the airport.
“There are portholes on the central taxiway which makes it impossible for normal aircraft to use it.
“The only aircraft that can go there are helicopters; so they need to fix the central taxiway.
“If the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) fixes it, it will help the operators and ATCs and then, there will be free flow of traffic,” he said.
