Accra, Sept. 28, GNA - Captain Joe Boachie, Chief Executive Officer of Ghana International Airline (GIA), on Friday assured passengers of the airline that its flight schedules remained unchanged.
"We are operating normally and everything is fine," Captain Boachie said in reaction to a troubled GIA flight which developed a fault in one engine while flying to London on Wednesday night and had to make an emergency landing in Spain.
"Safety is our core value and we will never operate with a faulty aircraft," he told the GNA. He said the aircraft was from the European Union and met all standard requirements.
The flight had returned to the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) soon after take-off that night because of a fault on one of the engines and the passengers evacuated.
Captain Boachie said the engine was inspected by experts from London Air, the aircraft leasing company, and after a 30-minute test flight the aircraft was cleared to fly.
He said over the North African coast of Algeria, one of the engines of the aircraft developed a fault again and shut down, causing the pilot to descend to a much lower level since the aircraft was now operating on just one engine.
Captain Boachie said the pilot therefore had to make an emergency landing in Spain from where the passengers had since been flown to their London destination by a chartered aircraft through the airline's arrangements.
Another chartered aircraft by the airline was also used in ferrying Accra-bound passengers from London to the KIA at 0245 hours on Friday. Captain Boachie said an engine shut down was not extraordinary in aviation.
Touching on arrangements to have more aircraft for the airline to contain such emergencies, Captain Boachie said the company had made requests to government about the needs of the airline.
He denied media reports that GIA operations at the KIA could come to a halt due to problems between the airline and its aircraft leasing company.
