A Max Air aircraft on Tuesday made an emergency landing with the emir of Kano Aminu Ado-Bayero among passengers onboard.
The plane was forced to land 10 minutes after taking off from the Aminu Kano International Airport, according to Daily Trust.
The aircraft with the number VM1645, which was slated for take-off at 1:30 p.m., had a 30 minutes delay and was only about 10 minutes in the air when it reportedly began to swerve until it made a detour.
The airliner’s director of maintenance Muhammad Mubaraq told the newspaper that the plane did not develop an engine fault as rumoured on social media.
“What actually happened was that during take-off, we had a bird strike and the number two engine ingested some birds and damaged the blade,” Mr Mubaraq said.
“Our pilot followed the normal procedure and made an air return on landing. When he landed, the engineers inspected it and replaced the damaged blade. They carried out normal maintenance procedures and released the aircraft.”
Mubaraq said he flew the same aircraft to Abuja.
According to him, there was nothing untoward with what happened. He said bird strike is a common occurrence and the pilot did the right thing by making an air return.
Describing the experience, one of the passengers told the newspaper, “The pilot calmly took the plane back to the Kano airport. It was repaired and the plane took off to Abuja and just landed safely in Abuja.”
