A United Nigeria Airlines passenger plane scheduled to Abuja from Lagos on Sunday, 26 November 2023, after about an hour landed in Asaba, Delta State, to the consternation of passengers on board.
The aircraft marked NAU 0540, took off from the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, MMIA, Terminal 2 enroute Abuja was diverted to Asaba airport due to inclement weather, according to the Airline authority.
Everything was going on well, it would seem, until the aircraft taxied to a halt and the cabin crew announced a successful landing in Abuja only for the passengers to look through their windows to realize, to their utter befuddlement, that they have been flown to the airport in Asaba, Delta State and not the Abuja airport as intended.
A passenger in the plane with a Twitter (now X) handle @dawisu tweeted that the Pilot must have been given a wrong flight plan from Lagos.
His tweet reads, “Nigeria my country. We departed Lagos about an hour ago on @flyunitedng to Abuja and upon arrival, the cabin crew confidently announced that we’ve arrived Abuja, only for us to realize that we landed in Asaba. Apparently, our pilot was given wrong flight plan from Lagos”.
Almost at variance with the above tweet, the United Nigeria Airlines image maker and Head Corporate Communications, Achilleus-Chud Uchegbu issued a press statement titled ” Temporary Diversion of Abuja-bound Flight to Asaba”, citing “poor destination weather”.
Uchegbu also acknowledged in the statement that the flight later successfully landed in Abuja following “improved destination weather”.
This is not entirely a new phenomenon as one can recall that in March 25, 2019, a British Airways flight mistakingly landed in Edinburgh instead of Düsseldorf, Germany, after its flight paperwork was submitted incorrectly.
