There was panic at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) Lagos Thursday when aircraft belonging to Middle East Airlines (MEA) and Turkish Airlines got involved in wing tip collision.
It was learnt that incident occurred when Middle East airplane was taxiing to park on the apron while that of Turkish Airlines was trying to depart the airport.
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Following the incident, the two aircraft were grounded by officials of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) in line with the safety protocols to assess their air worthiness.
Daily Trust reports that wing tip collision is not new in the country’s airports.
In July 2015, an Emirate flight heading to Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) from Lagos had to abort takeoff after the aircraft had a wing contact with another plane belonging to HAK Air parked on the runway.
Also two aircraft belonging to First Nation Airways had also been involved in wing tip collision at the airport.
It would be recalled that another incident occurred sometimes in 2016 in Benin Airport when a ground handling truck collided with an Air Peace plane resulting in the aircraft being grounded.
The collision on Thursday caused many hours of delay for the flights as the aircraft would be certified fit to fly as a result of the Ground Collision.
A source at the MMIA confirmed the development to our correspondent though did not give details of the flight.
He said one of the flights which came to evacuate some foreigners in Nigeria left early this morning while the other flight has not departed as of the time of filing this report.
