'Even safely on the ground it was chaos and eventually the air traffic controller gave up and declared the airport closed '

'Even safely on the ground it was chaos and eventually the air traffic controller gave up and declared the airport closed '

Mike Mahon recounts the chaotic situation during the opening of Abuja airport.

Mike Mahon

Trinity College Dublin

1965

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Mike Mahon

Work and Employment

Life Story

Nigeria

1960s

During my time there the Government decided to build a new capital in the middle of the country. This was to be called Abuja, and was conceived to minimize the friction between the Muslim North and the Christian South. Billions were spent carving the capital out of the bush and a brand new airport built. The great opening day arrived. Nigeria Airways had been instructed by the government to base an aircraft at at all the a outlining airports for an early morning departure to Abuja , all flights arriving for the grand inauguration. My crew were assigned to position the night before to Madugri and depart next morning for Abuja. For the occasion all flights were to be free. Well, we had one little guy that waddled on in a dirty tee shirt and shorts, a pair of flip flops and carrying fish in a string bag We took off for Abuja, but as luck would have it the weather was appaling. there was no radar at the airport so aircraft were obliged to do a full procedural radio beacon approach , which could take up to 10 - 15 minutes. As more aircraft arrived we were stacked up to 15'000 feet and then aircraft began to run low on fuel and had to divert to their alternate. As we had taken plenty of extra fuel we managed to land eventually. Even safely on the ground it was chaos and eventually the air traffic controller gave up and declared the airport closed.

Irish Research Council for Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences (IRCHSS)

Dr Kathleen McTiernan (Trinity College Dublin)

Dr Deirdre O'Donnell (Trinity College Dublin)