Three Weeks after Lagos Airport Fire, NAMA Yet to Deploy Mobile Control Tower

Chinedu Eze

Almost three weeks after the Terminal 1 of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos was gutted by fire, the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) is yet to deploy mobile tower as alternative to the control tower that was badly affected by the fire.

The control tower is a critical facility in any airport, where air traffic controllers monitor and determine the movement of every aircraft on runways, including taxiways.

Some aviation experts that spoke to THISDAY, explained that the absence of a control tower in any airport would constitute serious safety breach.

After the Terminal 1, known as old international terminal was gutted by fire on February 23, 2026, air traffic controllers relocated to the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) fire station located at the Runway 18L, known as domestic runway but because of its location, the controllers cannot see the entire airport.

The development calls for an urgent need to deploy the mobile control tower because the current situation where the controllers are operating from the fire station with a small tower could jeopardize flight operations.

Informed source volunteered that the controllers at the Fire Station tower cannot see 30 per cent of the entire airport and this is serious infraction to safety standards, noting that foreign airlines with safety procedure may not want to use the airport if they know that controllers are not seeing the runway in 360 degrees.

“As a matter of urgency, they should have deployed the mobile tower immediately after the control tower was put into disuse due to the fire because managing aircraft movement under the current situation is very, very dangerous,” an informed source said.

It was learnt that the fire may have handicapped air traffic control because the automatic weather equipment was destroyed with Automatic Fixed Telecommunication Network (FTN), which the controllers use to relay messages such as flight plan information, arrival and departure-the controllers now resort to using their phones.

There is also no coordination between the tower and the approach, when an aircraft is approaching to the airport to land and also weather report is issued manually because the automated weather system is no more working since after the fire.

“But the mobile tower has many of these critical systems if it is deployed. It has a lot of capabilities. it has voice communication and control system with weather report generating system. It has antennae and sensor which picks the weather information in the air from the Nigeria Meteorological Agency (NIMET) system and then feeds this information into the controller’s system,” the source said..

THISDAY also confirmed from another NAMA official that the controllers at the FAAN Fire Station cannot see the entire runway and also disclosed that NAMA has mobile tower to deploy at the nation’s busiest airport with total daily aircraft movement of about 264, according to available 2019 data.

“I cannot understand the delay in deploying the mobile tower. We should know how critical having the tower that covers the whole airport is and if this matter is being handled with the urgency it deserves, it should have been up since. You should ask yourself, why is it that the control tower is always the highest in any airport. It is because of the need for controllers to see the entire airport for safety reasons.

“It enables them to know where each aircraft is located and when it directs an aircraft to the holding point, the controller will see the movement. You recall few years ago when a part of an aircraft that was taking off fell, it was the controller on duty that saw it and informed the captain. Unfortunately, the captain did not bother to know what fell off and took passengers for another flight. The airline was seriously sanctioned by the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA). So, the control tower is very critical in any airport,” the informed source further said.

The source added that without seeing the runway it would be difficult to sequence the landing and take-off of aircraft. “If three aircraft are about to land how do you know when one has landed and taxi off the runway before you ask another to land? You may erroneously ask one to land while the other is still at the runway,” the source added.

THISDAY also learnt that shortly after the fire incident, the management of FAAN approved the position where the mobile tower would be located and a scaffold was to be built to further elevate the tower.

One of the directors in FAAN, who spoke to THISDAY, a day after the fire incidence, said: “As we are talking, FAAN has given a place for the location of the mobile tower. NAMA already has the mobile tower. But they want to put it where they will have visibility of the runways. So, they need a platform. They are building a platform to put it high. So that once they go on that platform, if they install it on that platform, at least they will have the visibility of the runways. So that is just what is delaying it. But NAMA has already brought in the mobile tower.”

Aviation experts have expressed surprise that almost three weeks after the fire incidence, a mobile tower is yet to be deployed.

THISDAY placed a phone call to the Managing Director of NAMA, Farouk Ahmed Umar to know why the agency is yet to deploy the mobile control tower, but there was no response from him, even after dropping a message on his verified WhatsApp number.  At the time of filing the report, there was no response to the message either. 

However, THISDAY also spoke to some sources from NAMA who said that because the tower at the FAAN Fire Station is not high, the air traffic controllers on duty coordinate with the controllers at the Total Radar Coverage of Nigeria (TRACON) facility who keep them abreast about incoming flights on Runway 18R, which is the international runway where commercial flights emanating from outside Nigeria land and take off from.

Another NAMA official also told THISDAY the scaffolding on which the mobile tower would be deployed would have to ‘solidify’ before the equipment could be mounted on it. According to NAMA official, it is the solidification that is causing the delay, adding that he cannot explain why the agency will wait that long before deploying the equipment.

“The civil work that was carried out where the tower will be deployed needs to be set before you mount it. I cannot explain why it is taking this long but this is what I learnt as the reason delaying it. So, it will take time to be ready but we have the mobile tower; in fact, we have more than one,” the NAMA official said.

There are indications that if urgent action is not taken to deploy control tower as quickly as possible, Nigeria may be sanctioned by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).