Nigeria enhances airport safety screening after failed attack on U. S. airline
0 Comments
Air passengers in Nigeria have been subjected to thorough screening before departure after a failed attack on a U. S. airliner by a Nigerian man.
Some of the security measures put in place by airports' authorities include further limits on carry-on luggage, more searches, and the requirement of passengers to stay in their seats for the last hour of their flights.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, is accused of trying to blow up a Northwest Airlines Airbus as it made its descent to Detroit on Dec. 25 from Amsterdam's Schiphol airport.
Abdulmutallab is alleged to have boarded a plane at the Lagos Murtala Muhamed International Airport, and transferred onto a trans-Atlantic flight at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands.
Harold Demuren, director general of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), said all the operatives involved in passengers facilitation have re-strategized with a view to ensuring no one passes through any of the airports skipping statutory screening.
Demuren appealed to both Nigerians and foreign travelers to cooperate with airport personnel as painstaking efforts would be made to ensure no one could slip by the airport security checks under any guise.
The 23-year-old under-graduate of Mechanical Engineering at the University of London reportedly detonated an explosive device aboard Airbus 330 aircraft while landing at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport.
The suspect, a son of a prominent businessman from northern Nigeria's Katsina State and former chairman of First Bank Umaru Abdul Mutallab, made the attempt on Christmas day.
