By Yunus S Saliu
The Gambia Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) yesterday said that there is nothing to worry about as the management confirmed that nothing had happened at the Airport and nothing happened to hinder its operations and the fire incident information circulated on social media did not occurred within the perimeter of the Airport and did not touch the Airport because it happened outside the perimeter of the Airport where human activities is taking place.
Lamin Dibba, public relation manager at the Gambia Civil Aviation Authority stated that the Airport is located in the middle of the bush where there are ongoing human activities around it.
Since there are people living around the Airport, there is natural tendency that they will always sort for their livelihood within their abode and this include searching for bush meat, fetching fire woods, rearing of animals, bush burning, spike and lightning of matches, dropping of cigarette butts and among other things that could result into fire outbreak especially in the dry season.
He confirmed that the fire incident which occurred on Sunday 24th February, 2019 was not inside the Banjul International Airport but outside the perimeter of the Airport “which is actually at the Eastern side of the Airport close to the old Nasa base.”
He then said the cause of the fire cannot be ascertained but it was very clear that it did not start within the perimeter of the Airport but far in the bush outside the Airport’s perimeter. “We have the control belt of the internal perimeter fence and the outside is where the human activities are taking place,” he stated.
He disclosed that human activities around the airport are one of the foremost problems of the Airport and the Management of the Airport on several occasions has consciously discussed it with relevant authorities but all to no avail.
He noted that like other Airport, the Banjul International Airport has a fire service station and “luckily for GCAA we have one of the best Airport in sub region. Few years ago government procured latest state of the art fire service equipment’s that GCAA is using and the fire brigade staffs at the airport are always on alert.”
Dibba called on the communities and people living within the communities around the Airport to be very careful as they fetch for their livelihood around the Airport to avoid such occurrence in future.