Former President of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo has recounted how he narrowly escaped a plane crash at the Lagos airport yesterday.
Obasanjo said he was on an Ethiopian Airline flight Boeing 777-300 which had huge difficult while trying to land but fortunately didn’t crashed at the Muritala Muhammed International airport on Wednesday.
The former President was said to be returning from a stakeholder’s dialogue on continental trade and implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement in Addis Ababa in the plane which had 394 persons on board.
Sources said the plane carrying the Ex-President had a false landing due to strong winds and a heavy downpour and was about to overshoot its runway before it returned to the air.
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An agency correspondent who was among the passengers inside the plane recalled that it has had almost 5-hour flight from the Ethiopian capital to Lagos which had been smooth until the pilot attempted to land at the Muritala airport. Rather than landing on the first touch line of the runway, the pilot overshot it due to the heavy wind and landed on the third touchline.
The NAN reported said the pilot, on realising that the plane had landed on the third touchline, quickly manouvered the plane back air, flying out of the Lagos airport. The plane was said to have hovered around between Lagos and areas suspected to be in Ogun, causing panic in passengers and crew members. It eventually landed 20 minutes later after its initial false landing.
According to Legitng, while recounting his experience after the incidence, the former President said: ‘I was on Ethiopian Airline. Rain just came down heavily. The pilot thought he could land. And he landed. He touched down. But I think he took a swift decision that he had to take off again. So he took off. If he did not, I think he probably would have overrun the runway. He then apologised and said he would land again. He tried again and we landed safely. And we all clapped’.
‘While it all happened, I was reading my papers. One man, who was next to me, said, ‘Oga you no worry?’ I said, ‘If I worry, what will I do? If you are on a plane and you have a situation like this, why should you worry?’ I left everything in the hands of God.’
Samson Oyedeyi
