The Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) is investigating the accident involving an Ethiopian Airline which occurred at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) in Accra last Saturday.
The cargo aircraft � Flight ET-AQV � travelling from Lome to Accra, was reported to have skidded off the runway of the airport on landing.
A three-member crew on board the flight is said to have been subsequently treated and discharged at the 37 Military Hospital.
The accident scene has been cordoned off, as emergency teams from the GCAA, Ghana Airports Company Limited (GACL), Ghana National Fire Service, Ghana Armed Forces, Ghana Police Service, National Security and National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), search for clues in respect of the accident.
Notwithstanding the emergency operation, the GACL says flight schedules have not been affected at the KIA.
�Operations at the airport are normal and flights are operating on schedule,� it said in a statement.
The acting Director-General of the GCAA, Mr Abdulai Alhassan, also told journalists that �operations at the airport are normal�.
He said a team was expected from Togo to join another team from the GCAA for the conduct of investigations into the incident.
Harmattan suspicion
Although the cause of the accident is unknown, many people have linked it to the severe harmattan weather that is sweeping across the capital lately.
In a Daily Graphic publication last week, the Ghana Meteorological Agency (GMET) advised pilots and motorists to exercise extreme caution in view of the severe harmattan that had made visibility very poor.
The Head of Research at the GMET, Mr Charles Kwaku Yorke, said the poor visibility due to the heavy fog hanging over the city could lead to accidents, if care was not taken.
Down memory lane
The accident involving the Ethiopian Airline last Saturday is the second in recent years that a cargo aircraft had crash-landed at the KIA.
On June 2, 2012, a Boeing 727-200 cargo plane, operated by Allied Air of Nigeria, over-shot the airport runway and struck a minibus on the El-Wak-Burma Camp road, killing 10 passengers including the driver.
Two other people who were in a taxi which was grazed by the aircraft, however, escaped unhurt, while all the four crew members of the aircraft survived the accident.
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