On August 14th 2008 a Turkish Airlines Airbus A310-300, registration TC-JDA, was performing flight TK1123 from Istanbul (Turkey) to Lagos (Nigeria) with 196 passengers, but went missing while on approach to Lagos at around 10pm Lagos local time. The airplane later landed at the airport of Lome (Togo), about 120nm (nautical miles) west of Lagos.
The Civil Aviation Authority of Togo reported the following day, that the airplane had lost all navigation instruments and communication radios, so that the commander decided to turn west along the coast knowing, that they had chances to visually find the airports of Cotonou (Benin), Lome (Togo) or Accra (Ghana). An Air France flight taking off Lome had prompted, that the runway lights at Lome were switched on, enabling the Turkish Airlines crew to see the runway. As TK1123 descended and maneouvered very low over Lome in order to not loose sight of the runway again, the tower controllers understood the airplane was in trouble. TK1123 landed safely on Lome’s runway, the crew not knowing, where they had actually touched down.
Turkish Airlines confirmed the report by Togo’s CAA and continued, that a maintenance crew was flown to Lome to examine the aircraft and identify the cause of the failure, but “nothing important” was found. The airplane then flew to Lagos and performed the return flight TK1124 to Istanbul with 182 passengers, arriving in Istanbul on August 16th.
Ismailimail 
What an amazing story! Congratulations to Captain Salim M Verjee and First Officer John Mwaura. You helped save the lives of the 196 passengers aboard the Turkish Airlines Airbus.
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