The Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos on Sunday experienced vibrations, which left many passengers terrified.
The vibrations were said to have occurred at about 3am and people present at the airport at the time attributed the incident to tremors.
The Minister of State for Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, however, said the vibrations were not in any way a structural issue or an earthquake but the result of unlatched doors where the coolers, which had just been put into use, were housed.
The minister, who came in from Abuja on Sunday evening, said the rumour that the vibrations had affected the structural integrity of the airport was untrue and misleading.
Sirika was quoted in a statement issued by the Acting General Manager, Corporate Affairs, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, Mrs. Henrietta Yakubu, as saying that the doors were not well-latched and the vibrations were directly under the counter of Royal Air Maroc, which led to the assumption that something had gone wrong.
The minister said, “It is wrong and erroneous to say that the structure of the Murtala Muhammed Airport is failing and there was an earthquake as reported by some sections of the media; it is not so. What happened was that there were vibrations at the air handling room of the cooling system; this door is a huge metal door that needed to be locked properly; it was locked but wasn’t latched properly; the latches were not in place and that gave rise to the vibrations because there are moving parts within the system.
“There are motors and fans and other things activated to create the necessary cooling system. That door responded to the vibration and because it wasn’t latched, it was vibrating and that vibration was directly under the counter of Royal Air Maroc and people assumed the structure was vibrating to the point of collapse.”
He said airport officials were alerted and the door was latched after it was discovered.
The minister said that the engineering department was also working on the chillers to make passengers more comfortable.
