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The vice presidential candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Fola Adeola, who narrowly escaped harm when the plane conveying him and other ACN leaders crash-landed at the Bauchi airstrip, said yesterday that the occupants never knew of the accident until they disembarked from the plane. He gave kudos to the pilot for exhibiting experience and professionalism in saving their lives.

He spoke with journalists in Abeokuta, explaining that the forceful landing of the 5N BMR aircraft they boarded was initially thought to be a minor incident. He has, however, called for probe of the incident.

Mr. Adeola, who said he was in Abeokuta, Ogun State capital, to seek support of his party members in the forthcoming elections, revealed that it was on getting off the plane that he and others realised the incident could have been fatal.

"We never knew that our plane crashed-landed. I was amazed until somebody told me. It was Ribadu who later told me that I have just escaped death. When I looked outside from Ribadu's plane to view our own plane and I discovered that it was full of blood stain, but we were not conscious as at the time it was landing and I started wondering; is the situation that bad?"

Mr. Adeola said it is shameful that animals are found on the runway.

He lamented that the incident was turned into an issue because of the personalities involved, pointing out that if it were to be relatively unknown passengers, it would have been kept under the carpet, adding that everybody should be treated equally..

"It is a matter of lives, and I think we should not toy with any lives no matter the position of the person involved; we are all equal. It can happen to anybody, and there should also be probe. Thank God I am not dead neither am I injured, but it gave me a lot of concern."

On how he joined politics and became Vice-Presidential candidate, Mr. Adeola said, "It took me one week to accept to be the vice presidential candidate to Nuhu Ribadu."

A Nigerian, Zainab Suleiman,62, on Sunday died onboard an Ethiopian airlines flight from Addis Ababa to Abuja..

The deceased’s husband, Suleiman Abdulra’uf, a Kano based businessman, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) correspondent in Addis Ababa that they were returning from New Delhi, when they transited to Addis Ababa and boarded another plane for onward journey back to Nigeria.

‘‘We travelled to New Delhi for treatment. She was discharged and on our way back,

we stopped over here in Addis Ababa where we changed planes, but one and a half hours after take-off, she died and the plane returned to Addis Ababa,’’ Mr. Abdulra’uf said.

He described the death of his wife as the will of God and that the corpse had been deposited at a morgue, while Ethiopian immigration and airline officials were making necessary arrangement for its transportation to Nigeria.He said he took the deceased to New Delhi for a cancer treatment.

NAN reports that some senior officials of the Nigerian Embassy in Ethiopia, headed by John Ejinaka, the Charge de Affairs of the embassy, had on Monday met with the deceased’s husband at the Chancery in Addis Ababa.

Another Nigerian was also reported to have died last week onboard an Ethiopian Airline plane from Abuja to New Delhi. The deceased was also going for medical treatment in India.

Mr. Ejinaka told the NAN that the embassy recorded six of such cases in 2009.

An aircraft conveying President Goodluck Jonathan’s aides, landed in a primary school last Wednesday amidst pandemonium. TOYOSI OGUNSEYE writes that over 12 students were injured in the stampede

It looked like a scene from a movie. Initially, pupils of Apostolic Church Secondary School, Ketu, Lagos, saw the aircraft hovering in the air and this was enough to distract those sitting close to the windows from their early morning classes.

The teachers in different classes that morning were curious about what their pupils were looking at, so they also looked out of the window and saw that the plane was descending closer to the roof of the building.

No one needed to tell them to run. Once the teachers took to their heels, perhaps thinking it was air mishap, the students followed en masse. With loud screams, everyone ran as fast as their legs could carry them. Some of the students on the second floor of the school building attempted to jump down in a bid to save their lives. One of them was an eight-year-old JSS1 student who landed on her buttocks and could no longer stand. Eleven other students were severely injured.

While this pandemonium was going on, the airforce plane with number NAV541 landed on the school premises. Heavily armed soldiers alighted from the aircraft and surveyed the area without saying a word.

When the fleeing students and members of staff saw that the aircraft had successfully landed, they surrounded it, with curiosity written all over their faces. The scene further attracted passers-by and people in the neighbourhood who trooped to the school. The armed soldiers ignored the crowd, went back into the plane and, after a few minutes, took off.

The injured students were then taken to the school‘s official clinic, Delta Crown Hospital, Ketu, where some of them were given first-aid treatment and discharged. Two of the students were still in the hospital as at last Thursday, including the young girl who fell from one of the two-storey buildings in the school. An X-ray showed that the girl had no broken bones but she had a severe tear in her private part, which had to be stitched.

The mothers of one of the children who were admitted in the hospital pleaded anonymity and said, “I have five children in that school. I thank God that my daughter is alive and I‘m not crying. I am not ready to make a case of this or even talk to the media because God has given me a reason to rejoice and not cry.”

One of the people in the area who witnessed the incident identified himself as Yemi. According to him, he was about to have his bath when he felt the building shaking. He said, ”I live just two houses away from the school. I had an appointment that morning and was about to have my bath when I heard a very loud noise outside; my room was also vibrating. So, I looked out of the window and saw a plane moving towards the ground. I ran out of my house in my boxers.”

Yemi added that he joined the crowd when the plane landed. ”When some of the soldiers alighted from the plane, they left the door slightly ajar. I saw some soldiers inside, but some people whispered that the President was inside the plane.”

It was gathered that the pilot and some of the crew muttered that the plane had ‘a problem.‘

The school authorities declined to make any comment about the incident. It was however gathered that Ketu Police Division, and the Lagos State ministries of health and education visited the school and the hospital a day after Jonathan‘s visit.

The Public Relations Officer of the Lagos State Police Command, Mr. Frank Mba, could not confirm SUNDAY PUNCH‘s findings. He said, he was not aware of the incident.

The President was on a visit to the flooded areas in Ajegunle, Agboyi-Ketu Local Council Development Area on October 20 when the plane made an emergency landing in the school.

The Director, Public Relations and Information of the Airforce, Air Commodore Yusuf Anas said, “It was a flight to survey the area where the president was visiting. It was not an emergency flight. The presidential aides were in it. We were not aware that 12 children were injured.”

Efforts to speak to the senior special assistant to the president on media and publicity, Ima Niboro, proved abortive. When our correspondent called his mobile line on Friday night, he did not pick it. Neither did he respond to the text message sent to him.

It could be recalled that a Cessna Model T9B training aircraft belonging to the Nigeria College of Aviation Technology, Zaria, Kaduna State, crash-landed at a village just outside Kano on May 2, 2010. It plunged into a farmland at Katoge Village, directly behind the Science Secondary School at Dawakin Tofa, about 20 kilometres from Kano City.

Three occupants of the light training plane escaped unhurt and the aircraft was not badly damaged. Those on board the plane included the college instructor, Mr. Ozogwu as well as Akerele Ojo Olu and Jafar Suleman, who are trainees.

source punchng

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A Libyan Airbus crashed when trying to land at Tripoli airport early on Wednesday, killing 103 passengers and crew aboard, but a Dutch child survived, Libyan officials said.

Libya's Afriqiyah airline said it operated the plane, which was flying from Johannesburg in South Africa to Tripoli. Planemaker Airbus said the jet was an A330-200 and the firm would help authorities with their investigation..

"All of the passengers and crew died except for one child," a Libyan security source told Reuters at Tripoli airport. "There were 93 passengers and 11 crew on board."

Libya's Transport Minister Mohamed Zidan said the 10-year-old child, who holds a Dutch passport, was in hospital.

The child did not have life-threatening injuries, the minister told a news conference near the crash site.

The casualties included 22 Libyans, including passengers and crew, and the rest were of various nationalities, a Libyan official at the airport said.

In a statement posted on its website, Afriqiyah Airways said its flight 8U771 had an accident during landing at Tripoli International airport. An airport official said the plane crashed at 6.10 a.m. local time (0410 GMT).

Airbus issued a statement confirming it had manufactured the plane involved in the crash. "Airbus will provide full technical assistance to the authorities responsible for the investigation into the accident," it said.

A South African foreign ministry spokeswoman said the plane had left Johannesburg en route to Libya the previous evening.