On the afternoon of 23 July 2026, an Enugu Air Embraer 170 carrying 68 people overran the runway at Benin Airport.
Nobody was hurt. All five crew members and 63 passengers left the aircraft by the emergency slides.
The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria closed the runway temporarily.
I was due to fly out of Benin to Abuja the next day.
A message from my airline told me the flight would now leave from Asaba at 15:20, following “the temporary closure of the Benin Airport runway by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria.”
Getting to Asaba was my problem. The road between Benin and Asaba is in poor shape, and the airline offered no transport and no compensation. Most of us paid our own way there.
Three months later, on 22 October 2026, I sat with Michael Achimugu, the Director of Public Affairs and Consumer Protection at the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, and asked him a direct question.
What were we owed that day?
His answer was not the one I expected. The runway, he recalled, “was shut down briefly,” and that changed everything.
“That’s beyond the control of the airline. They don’t control the runway.”
The key point, in his view, was not the closure but the choice passengers made after it.
“The real question would be, why did you accept the alternative given to you?
The moment you accept that alternative, you waive whatever you feel is your right.”
Passengers had other options, he explained.
A traveller could have declined to fly from Asaba and asked for a refund, or moved the trip to another day.
“You had a choice to have not flown on that operation and demanded a refund or reschedule that flight for another day. The moment you accept the alternative offered you, the airline has fulfilled its obligations.”
He did acknowledge that airlines carry a real duty in other situations. Under normal circumstances, an airline that reroutes a flight to a different destination must also get its passengers to where they were meant to go.
“They have a duty as well to transport you by any other means to your destination,” he said.
My case was different, he argued, because the decision to close the runway was neither the airline’s to make nor safe to override. “They would not force open the runway because you have somewhere to go,” he said. “Honestly, it’s not the fault of the airline.”
It is a hard answer for anyone who stood on that road to Asaba. It is also useful. A passenger who is offered an alternative after a disruption now knows the trade involved. Taking the new flight settles the airline’s obligation, while turning it down keeps the refund or a new date on the table.
I also asked him about the safety findings from Benin.
On 21 August 2026, the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau released a preliminary report on the overrun. According to Punch, the aircraft ran past the end of Runway 05 and struck approach lights and two concrete structures linked to a decommissioned localiser.
The bureau issued four immediate safety recommendations to the NCAA, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria and the Nigerian Meteorological Agency, covering the runway-end environment, the control tower’s line of sight and the availability of weather information. The investigation itself is still open, and the final report has not been published.
Mr Achimugu declined to comment on the findings until the bureau completes its work.
“These reports usually take time globally. It takes months, several months, sometimes even years. It’s not a Nigeria thing, it’s global,”
he said.
He will hold his view, in his words, “until that report is officially released.”
The final word on what went wrong at Benin will come from the investigators. On what passengers are owed, the regulator has now been clear. Read the offer carefully before you say yes.
