President Wade’s jet on Friday made an emergency landing at Palma De Mallorca Airport in Spain, while flying the Senegalese Head of State to Jeeddah.

The jet’s commander, General Faye, discovered cracks on the cockpit’s windscreen several hours after the take off. It was about 05 Am. An alert was launched while he choose the nearest airport to land Pointe De Sangomar, the presidential jet.

Twelve ministers and presidential collaborators among whom his top aide Pape Samba Mboup, were on board the jet which finally landed sucessfully.

According to Mr Mboup, the decision to make an emergency landing was timely and avoided a potential crash. But he didn’t give details on how the cockpit’s windscreen got cracked. Considering the period needed to change the windscreen, Wade’s immediate entourage on the jet requested the services of the Moroccan flying company Royal Air Maroc which lifted the Senegalese President and his delegation from Palma De Mallorca to Jeeddah via Paris. Meanwhile, it took about seven hours to repair Pointe de Sangomar which has now returned to Dakar.

The problems on board the Senegalese presidential jet renewed a debate in the Senegalese media which recalled that Pointe de Sangomar’s two engines were totally replaced in the year 2002. The maintenance cost was estimated at about Cfa 17.5bn by the, Senegalese government. In his book, Wade, un opposant au pouvoir ; l’alternance piégée, Abdou Latif Coulibaly, an investigative journalist revealead that the real maintenance cost was about Cfa 30bn instead of Cfa 17.5bn as announced by Wade’s Government. Coulibaly suspected foul play in the whole operation which according to him, was done in total opacity. The Senegalese Government countered Latif’s assomptions, arguing that application to tender for the jet’s maintenance was published,while little public fund was used in the expenses. Senegalese people are yet to know really how much public funds have been used for the maintenance.

Pointe de Sangomar is a Boeing 727 commissionned by Senegal’s first President, Léopold Sédar Senghor on November the 2nd 1976. At the peak of the controversy over the relevance and the manner in which the maintenance process took place, it was clear that Pointe de Sangomar already capitalized a total of about 10 000 hours of flight in the year 2000. Friday’s incident was therefore a reason enough for Pape Samba Mboup to say "people should not wait until a dreadful event happen to realise that the President needs to fly on a new and safe jet. This incident is the proof that we urgently need to provide our President with a new jet to enable him carry on his international duties safely.