Aviation stakeholders including operators and service providers have expressed apprehension over the incident that involved a private jet that landed on motorway at Ogwashi-Uku instead of the Asaba airport. Chinedu Eze writes on the implications of such incident.
The aviation industry is still shaking by the operations of a private jet with foreign registration number, N989BC, which approached to land at the runway of the Asaba airport, but instead landed at the second Niger bridge link road under construction at Ogwashi-Uku near Asaba, the capital of Delta State.
After it landed, the pilot in command did not contact the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) or the Air Traffic Control; rather, it took off again without start up clearance from the control tower and it was after it had taken off that it contacted Air Traffic Controllers.
Since that incident occurred on June 10, 2026, the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority and the Nigeria Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB) have not explained what exactly happened, thus giving room to conjectures and conspiracy theories.
But stakeholders and other industry observers are still aghast that such incident could take place and neither the operator of the aircraft nor NCAA could state clearly the mission of the aircraft and what exactly happened to the pilot why he chose to land at the motorway. Was it emergency landing or he mistook the road for runway? What is his experience operating in Nigeria’s airspace?
