The security management at the Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMA), Lagos are under serious questioning following a robbery attack on a private jet operated by Vistajet during the week.
Information gathered so far reveals that the jet with the registration number 9H-VFA which was moving slowly on the hangar of Evergreen Apple Nigeria (EAN) Ltd after landing in Lagos from Istanbul Turkey was attacked by a yet to be identified set of hoodlums at the airport between 9:10 and 9:30 pm on Tuesday night.
According to a source in the EAN, the pilot of the jet Captain Emma Heering discovered that the rear door of the aircraft was opened while the jet was still moving slowly to the hangar of EAN and a big black bag belonging to the air hostess, Francesca Louis was said to be missing from the jet.
It was also gathered such incident is not the first in the airport as there was a case earlier in the year, where some bandits allegedly opened the door of a small aircraft from the rear that was taxiing on the runway and escaped with some belongings of some of the occupants.
However, investigation reveals that the said jet with call sign VT584 was not escorted by any operational vehicle as at the time of the incident due to lack of any operational vehicle at the airside of the airport, a situation, which made the criminal act to be perpetrated with ease on the said day.
An airline staff who spoke under anonymity SaharaReporters said “What actually happened was that when the aircraft was taxiing to the hangar of EAN, the cabin crew discovered that the rear door was opened. So, when the jet taxied to the hangar, it was discovered that one big black bag belonging to their air hostesses was missing. An alarm was raised, but no one could trace the bandit who had forced the door open while taxiing.
It is bad that this is happening in an airport, which was recently certified by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has scaling security and safety hurdle. The government should look at the incident and several others that have been happening in the airside because this is not the first time such a thing would be happening at the airport and several others across the country.
Besides, a similar incident had occurred on Med-View Airline when a stowaway passenger scaled the fence of the airport to enter the wheel well of the Boeing 777 aircraft of the airline to London. The stowaway told security agencies that he had scaled the fence of the airport and spent days waiting to board the aircraft ostensibly with the aid of unscrupulous airport officials”.
