About 150 passengers were, Sunday, stranded at the Port Harcourt International Airport as air mishap was luckily averted.

Mother luck smiled on the passengers who were on-board MaxAir plane enroute Lagos when a sudden bang was heard and prevented the plane marked 5N-MBD from taking off.

According to a passenger on-board the aircraft, the plane managed to taxi back to the hangar before the lucky passengers and crew disembarked.

A former national Secretary of the Nigerian Medical Association, NMA, Dr Adewunmi Alayaki was on-board the plane.

- Some of the stranded passangers back on their seats

Alayaki wrote on his Facebook handle, "To God be the glory that passengers on Maxair 9.30am flight from Port-Harcourt to Lagos today 22nd May, 2022 were saved from air mishap." 

The Doctor wondered why the flight scheduled for 9.40am attempted to take off at exactly 8.45 which was unusual for airlines in Nigeria.

He said, "The aircraft was to take off from the runway at exactly 8.45am which was unusual for Nigerian Airlines to move before the time schedule for their flights.

"As the aircraft was about to take off, we heard a sudden bang and the aircraft could not take off, rather it managed to taxi back to the hangar."

He however lamented that six hours after the incident, there was no clear message or information from the management of the aircraft, not even after protest by the stranded passengers.

"The unfortunate thing now, at about 6hours after, is that we are stranded with no clear-cut information on what to do next.

"Passengers had complained, shouted, tried to create a scene, despite that, the workers here are not moved nor touched by our plight.

"Some of us have appointments to meet up with, some have connecting flights in Lagos to other parts of the country to pick.

"For how long shall we continue like this in this country, if not for God, if what happened to the aircraft that grounded it had happened midair, maybe the nation would have been thrown into mourning another plane crash."

The official line of the airline operator contacted by this newspaper for reactions was switched off for several hours while the message sent to the official WhatsApp number was also not answered for several hours.

This newspaper visited the official Twitter handle of the airline, no message was seen  in respect of the incident. In fact the last message on the handle was posted three days ago.