HOW I SURVIVED ILORIN AIR TRAGEDY: On Saturday, 29th November - TopicsExpress



          

HOW I SURVIVED ILORIN AIR TRAGEDY: On Saturday, 29th November 2014, I boarded an Overland Airway aircraft flight OJ 11886, ticket No. 98518 at Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport to Ilorin. We departed Abuja at 1543 hours and it was announced that it was a 45 minutes flight scheduled to arrived at 1630 hours. Everything went on smoothly while on board, we were treated to normal aviation traditions of a refreshment characteristic of such flights. Thereafter, the Pilot gave a run down of the weather situation in Ilorin concluding with an assurance that it was favorable for landing. However, at exactly the scheduled arrival time of 1630 hours, the pilot announced that we were about 20 miles to Ilorin International Airport. At that point I started wondering and suspected that something was wrong because we could see a city from the air which to my mind was Ilorin so why was the pilot saying we were 20 miles away. But it was just within self reflection. The aircraft passed the city just to hovered round back to it but has descended lower and visibility was quite clear. At 1645 hours, it touch down the run way at Ilorin International Airport but landing with high speed unusual of such situations which anybody familiar with traveling by air will realize. It over ran its way, suddenly left the tarmac and crashed into the bushed. At this point confusion had enveloped in the aircraft with passengers struggling for escaped but the captain stopped the engine of the aircraft, came out and appealed for calm. Within about two minutes, the Fire Service arrived nipped in the bud any possibility for explosion, because already there were smoke emitting. We were then evacuated by fire service officials without physical injury recorded. When officials of FAAN arrived about ten minutes latter, passengers were already taking pictures of the ill fated aircraft. Sadly, they harassed them impounding their cell phones compelling them to delete the images taken. Unfortunately, for them the deed has been done and we had taken sufficient images before their arrival. It was quite heartless that they demonstrated little concern for our lives instead were trying to cover up the incident. I became provoked by their action and had to descend on them before mobilizing the people to the arrival terminal, we had to trekked from the scene of the incident to the terminal. There were passengers to Ibadan and Lagos, so I left them at the airport without a word from any of the officials neither was there any health expert to ascertain the status of the passengers. The fact that there was no physical injury is not conclusive because there were traumatic experiences associated with the unfortunate incidence. For me I thank God for surviving the crashed but indeed it was a terrible experience one prays not to go through again in life.
Posted on: Tue, 02 Dec 2014 06:33:10 +0000

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