Fly540 Planes: On Wednesday evening, planes headed to the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport were redirected to the Moi International Airport in Mombasa for four hours. This is after a plane belonging to Fly540 developed a mechanical error on the runaway.
The incident has now prompted the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) to start investigations on why the plane stalled on the runaway and whether it is still safe to fly.
According to KCAA Director-General Gilbert Kibe, the incident happened at around 5 pm when the Fly540 Dash 8-300 aircraft developed a nose wheel steering jam on entry into the runway at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport through one of the taxiways.
He added that several attempts by a number of engineering teams from different airlines to get the plane out of the airline became futile prompting the four hour suspension. Apparently, there was also need to avoid breakage of the nose wheel.
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“An investigation is underway to determine the cause of the problem,” said Kibe.
The incident caused 15 diversions to Mombasa, Kilimanjaro, Entebbe and Dar es Salaam while four flights did not take off then.
Nine flights were diverted to Mombasa, three to Kilimanjaro, two to Entebbe and one to Dar es Salaam. The planes later landed at JKIA hours later.
Many passengers were stranded until 9.30 when operations resumed. “KCAA, the airline and airport operator, sincerely apologize for the disruption in air services at JKIA,” Kibe said.
