Asaba Jet Landing: NSIB Says Crew Aborted First Approach
A private jet that made global headlines last month by touching down on a road under construction near Asaba Airport had first broken off its landing attempt, repositioned, and come in a second time believing it was properly lined up with the runway, according to the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau.
The Bureau made the disclosure in a preliminary report released on Friday, marking its first official account of the June 10 incident that has since grown into a national security matter. The aircraft, a Bombardier Challenger 601-3A with registration number N989BC, was operated by VMO Aero Limited and flying under Instrument Flight Rules from the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos to Asaba, Delta State, when it went off course.
According to the report, the crew abandoned their first approach, repositioned the aircraft for another run at Runway 11, and were convinced they were correctly aligned with the published RNAV approach. “The flight crew reported that the aircraft’s navigation indications displayed the aircraft as established on the published RNAV Runway 11 approach,” the Bureau stated. Instead of the tarmac, the jet settled onto a paved roadway still under construction close to the airport, in the Ogwashi-Uku area.
The NSIB said seven people were on board, four crew members and three passengers, and that none were hurt. After the aircraft came to a stop it was shut down, inspected, and the passengers disembarked safely. “The aircraft subsequently departed from the roadway and returned to Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, without further reported operational abnormalities. A post-flight examination identified damage to the left nose-wheel assembly,” the report said.
That return leg to Lagos, done without regulatory clearance, is at the heart of the controversy. When the incident first broke, the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority grounded the aircraft and suspended VMO Aero’s Permit for Non-Commercial Flight, while placing the flight crew under review for departing the scene without approval, an action the regulator described as a breach of aviation rules. Under International Civil Aviation Organisation Annex 13, an aircraft involved in a serious incident is not to be moved before investigators secure the site.
The NSIB explained that its preliminary findings drew on flight crew and witness accounts, air traffic control records, operational documents, examination of the aircraft, and data pulled from the Cockpit Voice Recorder and Flight Data Recorder. “The recorders were retrieved and downloaded at the Bureau’s Transport Safety Laboratory in Abuja. Technical examinations and further analysis remain ongoing,” it added. In line with Annex 13, the Bureau stressed that the report neither assigns blame nor determines a probable cause, both of which will come in the final report.
The findings echo the account offered weeks earlier by the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, who dismissed talk of a mechanical fault. Speaking on TVC’s Politics Tonight, Keyamo said controllers had cleared the jet to land before losing sight of it. “The tower in Asaba cleared them to land. After about two minutes, the tower called and said, ‘Where is your location? I can’t see you again,'” he recounted, adding that the pilots reported landing on a road that “looked like a runway.”
Keyamo said the matter had moved beyond aviation. “It has gone beyond aviation; it is now a security concern,” he stated, noting the case was before the Department of State Services and would be reported to the President as a matter of national security.
The incident has reignited debate over the surveillance of private aircraft operations in Nigeria, with industry voices arguing that weak oversight leaves room for abuse. For now, investigators say they are focused on the evidence rather than the speculation that has trailed the case online, where questions about cargo and motive have circulated without any supporting proof from the authorities.