The flight crew of the Bombardier Challenger CL601-3A, registered N989BC, which accidentally landed on a road under construction near Asaba Airport in Delta State on June 10, 2026, has been sanctioned by Captain Chris Najomo, Director General of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA). Speaking to reporters outside the Airport Business Summit in Lagos, Captain Najomo revealed that the aircraft in question has been grounded and its Permit to Fly (PNCF) suspended; the pilot-in-command has been removed and prohibited from operating in Nigerian airspace; and the First Officer has also been suspended pending the conclusion of ongoing investigations. He clarified that while the Nigerian Safety Inquiry Bureau (NSIB) conducted the original safety inquiry, the NCAA is now handling the regulatory portion of the issue and is carrying out its own independent investigation. The Department of State Services (DSS) has entered the probe, he disclosed.
He called the situation "highly unusual," expressed his inability to understand how an airplane could confuse a road for a runway, and emphasized that the authorities will do everything in their power to determine the circumstances surrounding the event before taking any final regulatory action.
He reaffirmed the NCAA's commitment to promoting fair competition, ensuring airlines remain commercially viable, protecting passengers' interests, and preventing excessive charges across the industry while assuring operators at the Summit that the NCAA would address concerns over monopoly and anti-competitive practices.
The flight crew mistook the road for Runway 11 while flying through clouds and relying on navigation systems that indicated appropriate alignment, according to the NSIB's preliminary investigation from last week.
At 08:01, the VMO Aero Limited-operated aircraft took off from Lagos' Murtala Muhammed International Airport on an IFR flight with seven passengers, a pilot-in-command (PIC), a second-in-command (SIC), an observer pilot, and one member of the cabin staff. After returning to Lagos, it was found that the aircraft's left nose-wheel assembly had relatively minimal damage, and everyone on board had survived.
According to the investigation, the observer pilot pointed out what he thought were mistakes in the aircraft's Flight Management System (FMS) programming prior to takeoff, but the PIC allegedly advised him not to get involved because he was only on board for observation. Later, the PIC and SIC acknowledged that there had been inconsistencies during the FMS setup, but they claimed that they had been fixed prior to takeoff.
According to the report, the crew's view of the runway was obscured by broken clouds at 300 meters and sporadic visibility as the aircraft approached Asaba. The PIC reported that during the first approach attempt, the runway environment appeared visually shifted to the right of the aircraft's actual track, despite the aircraft's navigation system indicating proper alignment with the RNAV approach path. As a result, he abandoned the approach and requested a 360-degree holding turn, which Air Traffic Control approved.
The crew repositioned, reprogrammed the RNAV approach, and went inbound once more. The PIC reported the runway in sight prior to landing, and both pilots insisted that the navigational screens continued to exhibit correct alignment.
The observation pilot, however, disagreed with this. He claimed that the aircraft was still in cloud late in the approach, that he saw a telecommunications mast ahead and told the PIC to abort and rise, and that the Ground Proximity Warning System repeatedly sent out "terrain, terrain, pull up" alarms. Rather than landing on Runway 11, the plane landed at 08:57 on a paved but unfinished road. After stopping close to parked construction equipment, the crew realized they had mistakenly thought they had landed on a runway expansion.
According to the report, investigators were forced to depend on a transcript after the Asaba Tower made several unsuccessful attempts to contact the aircraft over the course of over two hours. This was partially attributed to an inoperable tower voice-recording system.