From Suleiman Idris, Lagos
A four-seater plane flying from Nigeria to Gabon via Cameroon has disappeared, Cameroon aviation sources said on Tuesday.
The plane, owned by the U.S. company Global Aviation, took off from Kano in northern Nigeria at 1800 hours on Monday, en route Libreville, in Gabon, where it was scheduled to arrive at 2300 hours, after a stopover in Douala, Cameroon.
However, the station said that the plane, with only the American pilot on board, did not make it to Douala.
It said the last contact the plane had with the control tower took place in Mongo, which is two hours flight from the Cameroonian economic capital.
Report says that search and rescue operations, led by Cameroon’s civil aviation authorities have not yielded any positive results.
Meanwhile, the managing director of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), Engineer Ibrahim Addulsalam yesterday said a missing four-seater plane had left the jurisdiction of Nigeria before it reportedly lost contact with aerodrome.
He said the aircraft, belonging to the U.S. Global Aviation Company, left Kano en route Gabon before it went missing within the Cameroon airspace.
“It has left the Nigerian airspace at the time it was reported missing and therefore cannot be the responsibility of Nigeria.”, he said in a telephone interview.
Addulsalam said the Nigeria aviation authorities have handed over the plane to the Cameroonian airspace, adding that as a result of that, the plane was in the Cameroonian airspace when it got missing.
“The plane has gone out of Nigeria; we have handed it over to the Cameroom airspace. It is their own score since it didn’t happen in Nigeria airspace”
Also sources inside Cameroon are said to confirmed that the four-seater plane flying across its territory actually disappeared within its airspace.
Its disclosed that as expected, the plane, with only the American pilot on board, did not make it to Douala.
It said the last contact the plane had with the control tower took place in Mongo, which is two hours flightr from the Cameroonian economic capital.
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