Gov, 9 others in air mishap - Air hostess collapse

By Jackson Udom - 01.11.2009

A chartered aircraft, which is a relatively brand new Hawker 900, was conveying the Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Barrister Godswill Obot Akpabio, to Lagos on Friday escaped what would have been a tragic air mishap in recent times, shortly after take-off from the Margaret Ekpo International Airport in Calabar.

Governor Akpabio, who was travelling on an official assignment with the permanent secretary, Government House, Mr. Etekamba Umoren and his director of protocol, Mr. Aniekpeno Ukpanang said the escape was by the divine grace of God.

Sunday Tribune gathered that the mishap resulted in an air hostess collapsing inside the aircraft just as the pilot tried to manoeuvre the aircraft from colliding with another aircraft which was taking off from the Port Harcourt International Airport.

Recounting his ordeal and that of his principal inside the chartered aircraft to Sunday Tribune, the Director of Protocol, Mr Aniekpeno Mkpanang said, “the aircraft took off at the Calabar airport en route Port Harcourt to Lagos. As we were going above the airspace in Port Harcourt, which is the air route, we experienced a sudden drop of about 5000 feet. We tried to go up but to no avail. It was madness and everybody onboard after that experience fell ill while the air hostess collapsed on the floor of the aircraft.”

A visibly shaken Mkpanang stated further that, “when we thought it was all over, we prayed to God and handed over our souls to Him. The Governor and other passengers were yet to recover from the trauma as I speak to you. But immediately the aircraft got a little stability, the co-pilot, Mr Ritman, a white man, emerged from the cockpit and went straight to His Excellency and said ‘ Sir we have just escaped what is called in aviation, a near air mishap that would have involved a collision with another aircraft.’

At this point, Mkpanang said, “the Governor called for more explanation from the pilot and he said, “Sir, while we were flying at about 24000ft above the sea level, there was an aircraft which was above us coming towards Calabar and billed to descend, and it was descending right inside our aircraft. But we have an equipment called GCAS which is like a radar which would show the pilot the position and distance of other aircraft and their levels but most Nigerian planes are flying blind because they don’t have the equipment.”

Mr Ritman stated further that, “even if they have it, it ceased to function because checks on aircraft are not taken seriously and yet, they allow them to enter the airspace, which is wrong.”

Speaking further, Mr Mkpanang disclosed that, “ it is either the aircraft that was coming on us did not have the equipment or was malfunctioning and as a result oblivious of the presence of our aircraft. Suddenly the warning system in our aircraft turned on advising that our aircraft go down because the approaching aircraft was crashing into us. At about 400metres to our aircraft we made a mad descend because the upcoming plane was a bigger one, and was faster than ours. We were once again advised to go up and in that process, the plane got stalled and we had a free fall until the engine came up again.”

According to him, “ we now radioed the PH Control Tower not to allow the plane to land and even if it lands, it should be seized. But the Control Tower told us that the aircraft was on its way to Calabar. We asked them to radio Calabar and to the chagrin of everybody, we were told that they have no communication link with Calabar except through GSM. At this point, the governor shouted and shouted. Thereafter we were able to get to Calabar where we learnt the plane was a CBN chartered flight. And for reasons known to the pilot, it took-off immediately it landed.”

When contacted, Governor Akpabio confirmed the incident saying, “if this had happened to a fully loaded passenger aircraft, that manoeuvre that made for easy escape could not have been possible because of the weight and it would have crash landed. The incident can be compared to what happened between ADC and Tria airlines.”

Akpabio stated that he has intimated the leadership of the NCAA of the incident and he immediately ordered that the aircraft be grounded on arrival in Lagos for proper investigation, adding that “the authority concerned should find out if the said aircraft has the GCAS equipment and whether other aircraft are flying in Nigeria without it.”