A portion of the new terminal building of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, caught fire on Friday, barely a week after a similar incident happened at the Sam Mbakwe Airport in Owerri, Imo State.
Confirming the incident, the Public Affairs Manager of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Mrs. Henrietta Yakubu, said the fire occurred at the equipment room of the new terminal.
Her words: “FAAN hereby notifies the general public of a minor incident that occurred at the equipment room of the new international terminal of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja at about 3:00 pm today.
“The incident was however swiftly curtailed by the in-built fire detection and protection system at the new terminal that triggered automatically.
“The building was designed and built with this protection system. The system comes up when it senses high ambient temperatures and sprays fire extinguishing agent. The residue of powder sprayed by the system was seen in the cloud, there was no fire at all.
Mrs. Yakubu, on behalf of FAAN, reassured passengers and the general public that there was no cause for panic, as the incident had been put under control and “our firemen are clearing the remnant of powder after which operations will resume.”
Meanwhile, flight operations have reportedly resumed at the airport.
FAAN’s Regional General Manager, North Central, Mr. Sani Mahmud, was quoted as saying that normalcy had since returned to the terminal.
Mahmud said the Turkish Airlines’ Abuja-Istanbul flight TK064 had commenced checking in as at 9pm Saturday.
“This is to inform you that THY FLT TK064 en route ABV-IST has commenced checking in processes in the NITZ and everything has been hitch-free,” he said.