President Yoweri Museveni has praised the flight crew of the Uganda Airlines aircraft which yesterday flew him to and from Nairobi
Museveni was on Thursday in the Kenyan capital for a meeting with fellow regional leaders including DRC’s Félix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo and Burundi’s Évariste Ndayishimiye, on the invite of Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta.
During the meeting, the leaders directed all armed movements hiding in the vast and mineral-rich eastern part of DR Congo to immediately lay down weapons or face joint military action.
On return, President Museveni met and thanked the Uganda Airlines crew .
“This is not the first time I have used our Airline; I must commend the Airline for the good hospitality, and the staff for their professionalism. The pilots are very good,” Museveni tweeted
Meanwhile, at Entebbe International Airport, the Uganda Civil Aviation Authority have finally reopened the main run way following Wednesday’s incident in which a Rwandair CRJ 900 aircraft veered off the runway on landing.
Runway 17/35 was temporarily closed to operations.
Chimpreports understands that Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (UCAA) later on issued a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) at about 4:30 pm granting clearance to flights to land and take off with observance of precautions.
Later in the evening, the NOTAM was cancelled, and flights suspended till 2:30 am on the morning of Thursday, April 21, 2022.
In a statement issued by the aviation body, the runway 17/35 is now fully open following successful removal of the aircraft from the runway strip and flights in and out of Entebbe International Airport are operating as scheduled.
According to Fred K. Bamwesigye, Director General UCAA, Passengers who missed flights on Thursday April 21, have been rescheduled to utilize the next available flights. In case any haven’t yet rescheduled, they are encouraged to get in touch with their airlines.
“Prior to embarking on the process for removal of the aircraft from the runway strip, a number of preliminary mandatory activities had to be undertaken, such as safe evacuation of passengers and crew, and preliminary investigation to protect the evidence, among others. In line with international practice, a comprehensive investigation has been fully constituted to establish the exact cause of the incident.
The public is urged to desist from speculating on this. Some media reports seemed to question the state of the runway, which is extremely unfortunate because Runway 17/35 was only recently resurfaced in 2020 and given a new lease of life,” said Bamwesigye.
Bamwesigye said, “The runway is fully compliant in terms of longitudinal and transverse slopes. Any non-compliances that the runway had developed prior to 2020 were fully addressed by the works undertaken in 2020.
It also has very visible runway marks that are fully compliant with international standards, contrary to what has been stated in some inaccurate media reports.
The runway marks are renewed every 6 months, given the level of traffic at Entebbe. Besides runway marks, the runway is also well equipped with navigation aids, including Approach Lights and Runway Edge Lights.”
According to the officials, there is also a procedure in place for communicating weather information to pilots by Air Traffic Controllers, and this was done prior to landing.
Bamwesigye explained that the incident, therefore, should be looked at as an occurrence that can happen and indeed happens at many Airports in the world. Entebbe has a very good safety record.
The last major incident happened in January 2019 when Ethiopian Airlines overshot the runway. Since then, runway 17/35 has facilitated very many flights successfully.
“UCAA regrets the inconveniences this incident may have caused to stakeholders and the travelling public. However, in aviation, it is Safety first. It is, therefore, important to stress the fact that there was no life or property lost.”
