Kenya’s national carrier, Kenya Airways (KQ) has confirmed an incident where a flight headed to Kigali, Rwanda from Nairobi turned back.
KQ in a statement on Sunday, December 17 noted that the flight was forced to return to Nairobi due to low visibility and bad weather.
“Kenya Airways PLC (KQ) confirms that on 17 December 2023 at approximately 07:45 hrs (East African Time), KQ 478, on a scheduled operation from Nairobi to Kigali, encountered low visibility and deteriorating weather on the normal approach to land at Kigali International Airport,” the press statement stated in part.
Further, KQ noted that the early Sunday morning flight encountered impossible weather conditions, forcing the crew to consider landing the plane.
“After two unsuccessful attempts to land the crew elected to return to Nairobi for the safety of passengers and crew onboard,” the airline clarified.
Nonetheless, Kenya Airways noted that the flight landed safely in Nairobi a few hours later.
“The aircraft landed safely in Nairobi at 09:50 hrs (East African Time),” noted KQ.
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Passengers Safety
Further, the airline noted that the affected passengers had been transferred to the next available flight, to avoid further inconveniences.
KQ while apologizing for inconveniences caused clarified that such incidents are standard safety procedures.
“We sincerely apologize to our guests for the inconvenience and assure our customers that their safety and that of our crew is our highest priority,” the statement concluded in an assuring note.
Before this incident, Rwanda Air had earlier warned of delays due to bad weather.
“Due to poor visibility as a result of heavy fog at Kigali International Airport, we are expecting flight delays to/from Kigali. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause,” Rwanda Air posted on X at 11:34 am.
Previous Kenya Airways Flight Return Incidents
However, this is not the first time that KQ has announced air returns due to a myriad of issues.
On December 16, a flight from Nairobi to Dubai returned after the JKIA traffic control encountered tyre debris during a regular inspection.
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This was announced in a presser by the flag carrier on their official X account.
“Kenya Airways PLC (KQ) confirms that on 15 December 2023 at approximately 21:20 HRS, JKIA Air Traffic Control encountered tyre debris during a regular runway inspection,” Kenya Airways announced.
“Upon further inspection, it was established by the KQ operations team that the tyre debris was from KQ 310, which had departed on a scheduled operation from Nairobi to Dubai,” the press statement noted.
However, the crew successfully executed the air turnback, and the plane landed safely back in Nairobi at 11:36 p.m.
Consequently, in both incidents, the national carrier assured that air returns are a normal standard safety procedure in aviation.
