The pilot of Lufthansa Flight LH566 from Frankfurt, which was intended for the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) in Lagos, lied to the passengers on Friday and diverted the flight to Cotonou, Togo, and afterwards Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea.
The flight was planned to arrive in Lagos around 5:45 pm on March 3, 2023, before continuing to Malabo with about 15 additional passengers, but it instead arrived in Lagos at 2:00 am on March 4, 2023.
The Lagos airport was not shut down at any point on March 3, according to inquiries, and there was no proof that any other aircraft flying into Lagos had diverted to another airport, either within Nigeria or abroad.
The return flight from Lagos to Frankfurt was delayed due to the airplane’s detour, therefore Lufthansa management sent out a notification to the passengers from Lagos who were traveling to Frankfurt.
The pilot’s assertion that the airport was shut down shocked several industry participants. Some stakeholders speculated that the airport may have been shut down without appropriate warning, but they later acknowledged that other parties would also be impacted if that were the case.
