ETHIOPIAN CARGO PLANE CRASHES AT KIA

The Boeing 737-400 crashlanded on Saturday

Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com

By William Yaw Owusu

Monday, January12, 2014

An Ethiopian Cargo plane on Saturday crash-landed at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA), Accra.

The unfortunate accident occurred at about 11:06 am where three crew members on board were rushed to the 37 Military Hospital, Accra but all reportedly survived.

The Boeing 737-400 plane registered ET – AQV being operated by Lome-based ASKY Airlines which was landing in KIA from Lome, Togo suffered extensive damage to the plane in a runway excursion.

Although, there has not been any confirmation as to how the 18-year old plane crash, some experts are attributing it to the harsh harmattan weather in Ghana which has been producing poor visibility leading to the cancellation of flights to the northern part of the country.

Emergency teams made up of the GCAA, Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS), Ghana Armed Forces (GAF), Ghana Police Service, National Security, National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO), National Ambulance Service and the Ghana Airport Company offered swift emergency response.

Regulator, Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) said it had commenced investigations into the matter to determine the actual cause of the crash.

The team has since sealed off the accident scene to ensure smooth and effective investigations.

No Flight Disruptions

Acting Director-General of the GCAA, Abdulai Alhassan after visiting the crash site told journalists that “operations at the airport are normal.”

He said the accident will not disrupt flight schedules.

Corporate Communications Officer of Ghana Airport Company, Newman Quartey later said operations at the airport had ‘normalized’ and added that “the normal flights are operating on schedule.”

He said the plane appeared to have  “skidded the runway” while trying to land “safely.”

Demolition Exercise

In a related development, some buildings within the airport enclave are likely to be demolished according to Joyce Bawa Mogtari a deputy Minister of Transport.

She said the Ministry will sanction the demolition of buildings if they consider their location a threat to aviation security.

The deputy minister told Citi FM that a taskforce had already been set up to identify illegal structures within the demarcated airport security zone.

 “We have invited National Security to form a task force. This is a taskforce that is actually going to go around and collapse certain buildings because there have been complaints that some of these buildings appear to be in the flight path “First and foremost we are going to do an assessment of all these properties so when they have gone round and made assessment of all these buildings , what will happen is that a formal report containing whatever recommendations that we have will be submitted to the Minister of Transport for further action to be taken.”

Flashback

It would be recalled that in June 2012, another aircraft belonging to Allied Cargo in Nigeria overshot the KIA runway and killed passengers in a trotro bus at the El-Wak Sports Stadium end of the airport.