Nigerians woke up on Sunday 25 August, 2013 to learn of a stowaway teenage boy, Daniel Ohikhena, who flew with Arik’s flight W3 544 from Benin to Lagos, thinking the plane was US-bound! Daniel, probably, had fantasised of life in far away America, watched films where some movie stars in a feign show of bravado, stowaway precariously on fast moving cars and aircrafts , chose to be the hero in reality, difficult to tell if he was oblivious of the risk his bluster involved, how far a flight from Benin to US was, or how he planned to survive extreme weather conditions. Only the intrepid adolescent had the answers to these questions. As mother luck would have it, the flight was Lagos-bound. In other climes, where security breaches – in the face of increasing global terror attacks – are not treated with kid gloves, heads will roll in the aviation sector. The laxity of airport officials underscores the insecurity in the country. Our ‘smart’ airport officials, come alive when luggage are in sight. Missing baggage and other valuables are common place in Nigeria’s airports. The war of words and blame trading between Arik Air and Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has continued unabated. FAAN investigations revealed “that a passenger on board the flight called the attention of the cabin crew while the aircraft was waiting to take off at the threshold of the runway, to the effect that they had seen a young boy go under the aircraft and had not seen him re-appear on the other side.” It was gathered that the cabin crew then informed the pilot who radioed the airport control tower to verify. The airport official ignored the request to conduct a check, but instead, gave the all clear for take off. - See more at: ilevbare/2013/08/arik-stowaway-boy-big-picture-theophilus-ilevbare/#sthash.YZRcHapA.dpuf
Posted on: Mon, 02 Sep 2013 20:51:37 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015