After the successful recovery of Rwanda’s CRJ9 Aircraft, which had veered off the runway while landing at Entebbe airport, the Aeroplane is reported to have been taken to the hangar for repair. This was confirmed by the management of Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (UCAA) on Friday.
Similarly, a technical committee was set up to investigate a Wednesday morning incident where Rwandan CRJ9 Aircraft, flight number 464 veered off the runway, paralysing operations at Entebbe airport for over eighteen hours leading to postponement and adjustment in flight schedules.
Whereas the committee from the ministry of works and transport is expected to come up with a comprehensive report, preliminary findings point at the bad weather conditions as the probable cause of the aircraft mishap.
Meanwhile, runway 17/35 is fully operational following successful removal of the aircraft from the runway strip and flights in and out of Entebbe Airport are operating as scheduled. Passengers who had missed the flights have so far been rescheduled to utilize the next available flights.
Prior to embarking on the process for removal of the aircraft from the runway strip, a number of preliminary mandatory activities had to be undertaken, such as safe evacuation of passengers and crew, and preliminary investigation to protect the evidence, among others.
Some media reports seemed to question the state of the runway, which the UCAA management termed as extremely unfortunate saying, Runway 17/35 was resurfaced in 2020 and given a new lease of life. “The runway is fully compliant in terms of longitudinal and transverse slopes. Any non-compliances that the runway had developed prior to 2020 were fully addressed by the works undertaken in 2020,” explained Fred Bamwesigye, the UCAA director general.
Relatedly, Eng. Ayub Sooma the director for airports and aviation security, said the runway marks are renewed every 6 months, given the level of traffic at Entebbe airport. “Besides runway marks, there are other navigation aids, including Approach Lights and Runway Edge Lights,” added Sooma.
According to procedure, the pilot was informed of the early morning bad weather, but he took a decision to land, according to the sources at the Air Traffic control tower.
Meanwhile, Vianney Luggya, the UCAA public relations manager allayed that such incidents are anticipated in the global Aviation business, and there are well documented contingency plans for managing them.
“This incident therefore should be looked at as an occurrence that can happen and indeed happens at many Airports in the world,” he remarked. Luggya however, regretted the incident which caused inconveniences.
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