Nigeria grounds passenger jets for safety checks

Authorities have grounded Boeing 737 planes across Nigeria for spot safety checks, stranding thousands of travellers today around Africa’s most populous nation after two deadly accidents in two months.

All Boeing 737-100 and 200 series aircraft in Nigeria will be checked for stress cracks, in compliance with a US air-worthiness directive, Folasade Odutola, head of a special aviation panel overseeing the checks, said in a statement.

The ruling by the US Federal Aviation Administration required all such models of aircraft to be inspected within 90 days of its August 2000 ruling. Many countries follow FAA directives.

The Nigerian official did not explain why the measure is only being implemented now. Thousands of passengers in Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city and Abuja, the capital, could be seen waiting in departure lounges.

The changes affected major domestic airlines including Bellview, Chanchangi, ADC and Albarka.

In Lagos, thousands of disappointed passengers travelling for various domestic destinations for the Christmas holidays left to seek other means of travel with most scheduled flights cancelled.

“I have no choice now but to go by road,” said Nobert Nchekwube, a passenger who said he was bound for Enugu, 430 miles east of Lagos.

President Olusegun Obasanjo had vowed to overhaul Nigeria’s airline industry after two major plane crashes in seven weeks killed 224 people, blaming some of the industry’s problems on corruption.

In the most recent incident on December 10, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9 plane operated by Sosoliso Airlines crashed while approaching Port Harcourt, killing 107 people, most of them school children going home for Christmas.

A Boeing 737-200 plane belonging to Bellview airlines crashed soon after takeoff from Lagos on October 22, killing all 117 on board.

The causes of the crashes have not been determined by investigators.

Obasanjo ordered a halt to flights by Sosoliso and Chanchangi last week, citing intelligence reports about problems with some of their planes.