On 18th August 1994, ADC flight 018, a DC-9 5N-BBE, a Nigerian registered aircraft operated on behalf of ADC Airlines (Liberia) made a scheduled flight from Banjul, the Gambia via Lungi, Freetown, Sierra Leone, on to James Spriggs Payne Airfield, Monrovia.
The aircraft, piloted by Captain Sunday Arome (PIC) and Co-Pilot Mathias Dramou took off from Lungi International Airport at about 1120 hrs UTC and approached Spriggs at about 1150 hrs with seventy-four(74) passengers and eleven (11) crew on board.
A visual approach was carried out using the GPS as a guide. The aircraft was aligned with the runway center line at about 8nm out. According to the PIC, the aircraft broke cloud at about 1000 feet and the Oil Refinery and the fuel dump, were positively identified at 5nm.
When the aircraft was about 4nm away from the threshold of RWY-23, it had descended to 400ft. The RWY was sighted at about 2.5nm, the aircraft crossed the threshold of RWY-23 at a slightly high altitude of about 150ft.
A hard touch down was however made at about 3000ft from the threshold. The spoilers were said to have deployed automatically and the pilots applied full brakes with reverse thrusts on both engines. The aircraft crossed the threshold of RWY-05 at a speed of about 80kmts.
