Wole Shadare 
The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has explained that the failure of the Runway 06/24 edge light at the Mallam Aminu Kano Airport, Kano, to light up led to the diversion of two Kano-bound aircraft to Lagos over the weekend.
However, the airport manager said that night operations resumed at the airport on Sunday, July 16, after the restoration of all runway lights. Director, Public Affairs & Consumer Protection, Abdullahi Yakubu-Fun- tua, explained what transpired on July 15, when the lights could not come on: “On July 15, at about 1600hrs, the airfield maintenance team of the Fed- eral Airports Authority of Nigeria observed that the runway lighting would not come on, after the scheduled daily maintenance work of replacing old and weak airfield cables with ew ones at runway 06/24.
“The maintenance team immediately initiated fault-finding procedures along the cable route to identify the problem and restore power to the airfield lighting circuit. “It was, however, ob- served that the entire run- way circuit was affected, leading to the failure of the Runway 06/24 edge light, the Taxiway Alpha edge light, PAPI, and signage.
“As of 1900hrs local time, the fault had yet to be isolated and power sup- ply to the runway could not be restored leaving the runway in a total blackout which affected night op- erations. Arriving flights had to be diverted to alternate airports. “At 2300hrs, after all ef- forts to restore power sup- ply to the runway failed, the operations depart- ment initiated a NOTAM action for the closure of Runway 06/24 between the hours of 2300hrs on July 15 to 07:00hrs of July 16, 2023. “The FAAN regrets any inconvenience caused by the diversion of the 2 Kano-bound aircraft to Lagos due to the un-ser- viceability of the runway lights. ‘Night operations have since resumed as new ca- bles were installed on July 16, leading to the restora- tion of all runway lights before the commencement of night operations.”
