Lagos airport shut temporarily, due to a corpse on runway

Post created on 12:06 pm

The Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos was temporarily shut down in the early hours of Thursday after a dead body was found at the international wing of the airport’s Runway 18R.

The identity of the dead man is yet to be ascertained as of press time, and could not be established whether the dead man was knocked down by an aircraft taking off or landing on the runway.

However, airport officials told journalists that the runway was temporarily shut down while a team of officials from the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria and the Nigeria Police Force evacuated the corpse from the runway.

During the period of clearing the international terminal, flights were prevented from landing and taking off.

Due to the temporary shut down some flights that could not land was an Ethiopian Airlines flight 3907, a Boeing 77F aircraft with registration number ETAVN, which was coming from Lome, Togo to Lagos, Nigeria.

The flight was however diverted back to Lome after holding for a while.

Reports from the airport officials said the corpse was suddenly found on Runway 18R during a routine runway inspection by FAAN personnel.

Officials were said to have reported a corpse on the runway around the cargo area.