A Kano-bound IRS Airlines plane departing the Lagos airport on Wednesday morning collided with an abandoned truck beside the taxiway, forcing the pilot to cancel the flight.

The wing of the Fokker-100 aircraft, it was learnt, collided with the truck which fell into a drainage on Tuesday.

The truck belongs to a Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria contractor.

The 91 passengers on board the flight were later disembarked and put in another plane which left for Kano three hours later.

A statement by the Managing Director of IRS, Mr. Yemi Dada, confirmed the incident.

The statement quoted Dada as saying “This morning our flight LVB 3306 taxied out on a Lagos to Kano flight with a transit stop at Abuja. The aircraft taxied out at 7:48am with 91 passengers. While taxing on the taxi way the Captain observed a FAAN truck in a ditch. There were no marshals around it neither was there any marking to indicate that it encroached into the taxi way. There was no Notice To Air Men (NOTAM) issued to that effect as well.”

He added, “The captain continued on his taxi and the wing tip hit a protrusion from the truck towards the rear of the truck. This made the captain request a return to ramp from the tower and also notify the tower of the incident and the danger posed by the truck.

“The passengers were disembarked and accommodated in another aircraft which departed Lagos at 10:15am. The incident has been reported to Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority and we await the clearance of the NCAA to effect repairs and return the aircraft to service.”

A FAAN statement also confirmed the incident.

A statement by the General Manager, Corporate Communications, Mr. Yakubu Datti, said, “At about 8.30 pm last night (October 9, 2012), a gully emptier with registration number XT 461 LSD on official assignment accidentally fell into a drainage in the taxiway ramp of GAT and could not be evacuated immediately.

“At about 7.30am of today, October 10, 2012 an IRS aircraft, Forkker 100 with registration number 5N SAT left the parking bay of MMA2 for the threshold of runway 18L of MMIA. The pilot Capt. D Kelly of IRS was informed by an Arik Pilot of an obstruction on the taxiway towards Runway 18L and he (Capt. D. Kelly) felt he could manoeuvre the obstacle by his own judgment but this failed because the tip of the wing of the aircraft collided with a section of the gully emptier at about 7.45 am.”

It added, “Capt. D Kelly did not stop but continued to taxi back to the boarding gate of MMA2 to discharge his passengers. No passenger or crew sustained injuries as a result of the incident. All the passengers were later transferred to another IRS flight to Abuja. Officials of the Accident Investigation Bureau and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority were immediately invited to the scene of the incident for the on-the-spot assessment of the incident while engineers of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria were placed on stand-by to evacuate the stuck sewage tanker as soon as preliminary investigations by both AIB and NCAA wer