Multiple flights that land at the busy Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) were yesterday evening diverted to Mombasa International Airport following a plane’s malfunction on the runway.
Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) has started investigations into the incident that saw services paralyzed at JKIA after a Fly 540 aircraft stalled on the runway for almost four hours.
The incident, which occurred a few minutes to 6:00 pm, forced operators to divert some of the planes to other airports including one international plane attached to Malawi Airlines and five other local flights.
According to Director-General Gilbert Kibe, the aircraft developed a nose wheel steering jam on entry into the runway at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport through one of the taxiways.
“An investigation is underway to determine the cause of the problem,” said Kibe.
He said several attempts by a number of engineering teams from different airlines faced challenges to remove the aircraft taking into account the need to avoid breakage of the nose wheel and it took four and half hours to remove it.
The runway was cleared and opened late last night and the authority encouraged passengers to contact their respective airlines for their flight status.
“This is to confirm that the runway at JKIA is temporarily closed as crews respond to safely remove a disabled aircraft. Take offs and landings are on hold. Passengers are advised to check with their respective airline for flight status updates,” KAA stated.
Some of the travellers revealed that they were stranded in Malindi and Moi Airports after they were informed that their flights, destined for JKIA, would not take off.