RUNWAY CLOSURE LIFTED TO ALLOW AIR TRAFFIC TO RESUME
(Posted 20th September 2016)
Traffic has resumed at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in the nick of time to have major inbound traffic land at their destination rather than joining the many flights which had to be diverted earlier in the evening to Mombasa when a runway incident closed the single runway of East Africa’s busiest airport.
An inbound Kenya Airways flight from Entebbe, KQ 415, suffered a tyre burst on landing. Brought to a safe standstill on the runway were passengers, none of them harmed, disembarked from there and taken to the terminal by busses, while Kenya Airways ground engineers inspected the aircraft and in particular the landing gear.
The plane was eventually evacuated from the runway to the Kenya Airways maintenance facility on the Embakasi side of the airport and traffic has since resumed with diverted flights given priority to head to Nairobi.
The incident, like many others over past years, again demonstrated the need for a second runway to be built in the fast track, a project which got bogged down in bureaucrazy – pun intended – and legal maneuvering after the much fanfared ‘Project Greenway‘ got scrapped.
Kenya is now challenged to lift their main aviation facility into the 21st century and not rest on the accomplishment of launching Terminal 1A and refurbishing the old terminals, besides erecting a temporary terminal, as other countries in the wider region, including Kigali and in particular Addis Ababa, are all set to build entirely new airports.
