But for providence, Nigeria would have lost many illustrious sons and daughters, including pop star, Tuface, the wife of the maverick politician, Tony Anenih, and some Senators. Below is the story of their near death experience in an averted air disaster...
A very big disaster was averted last Sunday, May 19th, when a South African Airways Airbus A340-600, registration ZS-SNG performing flight SA-60 from Johannesburg (South Africa) to Lagos (Nigeria) conveying over 300 people developed an electrical fault in Mid-air.
It's a surprise the incident didn't get to the media since Sunday.
According to a source, I heard about it yesterday when a colleague of mine was narrating the entire story to me and another guy in his car. According to him, he was on the flight that faithful day. It was a night flight and he was listening to music from his Ipod when he perceived a foul burning odor, he thought the white man sitting next to him had farted but he knew it was something serious when he noticed people panicking.
He pulled his headphones and asked the white guy sitting next to him why people where panicking, all the white man was saying was "This plane is going to crash! This plane s going to crash!" All of a sudden the lighting system in the aircraft went off…everyone was mad with fear.. some started praying others brought out their blackberries and started pinging, some started calling loved ones and telling them their last wishes.
The captain then announced that the plane had developed an electrical fault and they were going to have an emergency landing. The pilot then turned the plane around and headed back to South Africa.
After 45 minutes, the captain announced that they were going to ‘dump the fuel’ i.e remove all the Jet Fuel on the plane, this is a precautionary step taken by pilots whenever a plane is going to crash or whenever there is a risk of fire. As they were about to land….another problem came up…the captain announced that the tires of the plane could not come out..by then everyone on the plane had given up.
Miraculously, the tires came out later and the plane successfully landed and the passengers were evacuated. My colleague then said that himself and other passengers were taken to the arrival lounge, that was when he met Tony Anenih’s wife, Josephine.
Investigation later revealed that it was a kettle that sparked in the kitchen that affected the whole electrical system of the plane. A lot of Nigerians, including senators, constituted the bulk of passengers.
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