A Boeing aircraft operated by Arik Air made an air return on Thursday morning following the detection of an indication light suggesting a potential fire in the aft cargo area.
An air return is the situation in which an aircraft returns to landing at a departure airport, but did not originally intend to.
The incident happened approximately 10 minutes after takeoff, prodding the Captain of the flight to adhere to standard operating procedures by initiating an air return and requesting priority landing clearance from the Control Tower.
According to Arik Air, the passengers were disembarked and the aircraft was thoroughly checked for airworthiness to ensure that it is capable of carrying out future flight operations safely upon landing at Lagos.
“Subsequent investigation by our maintenance team determined that the indication light was triggered by a false alarm.
“We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience experienced by our esteemed passengers as a result of this incident,” Arik stated.
