A Lagos-bound flight, Dana Flight 9J402, made an emergency landing in Abuja at 2:25pm today, Wednesday, February 23, 2022. The fully loaded plane developed a yet to be ascertained problem, leading to the emergency landing.

The pilot was said to have announced mid-air that the flight could no longer continue for some obvious reasons.

Dana Airlines Limited later attributed the development to bad weather.

The airline’s spokesman, Kingsley Ezenwa, in a statement, said the passengers were later asked to disembark from the aircraft.

The statement reads: “Our flight 9J 336 from Abuja to Lagos on 23rd February 2022 had an air return due to bad weather at destination.

“The passengers on the aircraft were advised to disembark and board another of our aircraft on ground, so the aircraft that had the air return could refuel for another flight.

“At Dana Air, the safety of our crew and passengers will remain at the centre of everything we do and this commitment won’t change anytime soon.”

The Nigerian civil airspace has maintained a relatively safe record in about a decade now which has increased passengers’ confidence in air travel. The last air crash in the country involving a commercial airplane was in June 2012 when a Dana Air MD-83 aircraft from Abuja crashed near the Lagos airport while attempting an emergency landing, killing all 153 souls on board and six on the ground. (Based on reports by New Telegraph and The PUNCH)