Lagos-Accra Arik Air plane goes up in smoke, staff “hand passengers tissue to cover noses”
An Arik Air flight travelling from Lagos to Accra on Tuesday was forced to make an emergency landing after the cabin went up in smoke.
The aircraft which took off at exactly 7.20pm was said to have caught fire barely 35 minutes into its flight.
A passenger on board the plane at the time of the incident shared her terrible experience:
“The name of the aircraft is STEPHEN. It was a Dash 8 NextGen propeller aircraft. The flight took off precisely 7.20pm (Lagos time) 35 minutes into the 55 minutes flight, I started perceiving something smelling like a burning stuff.
“Shortly after the guy sitting next to me asked if I perceived any smell of burning stuff and that confirmed my worst fears. Before you could say jack, smoke has filled the cabin.
“The air hostesses were busy scampering around opening the cabins and the lavatories to check if they could trace the source of the smoke without success.
“While that continued, the oxygen masks that were always being advertised during the safety demo prior to take-off couldn’t be released instead we were handed tissue papers to use to cover our noses to minimize and filter out possible carbon monoxide inhalation.
“About 5 minutes after, precisely with 15 minutes of flight time remaining, the pilot came on the public address system to inform us that they have smoke coming into the cabin and that they don’t know the source and that they have DECLARED EMERGENCY.
“At that point we knew that our lives were only in God’s hands. Everyone prayed to his/her Gods. To the glory of God, the flight successfully landed by 8.15pm (7.15pm Accra time) to the waiting of several fire service trucks at Kotoko International airport, Accra.
“We were evacuated into a waiting bus with instruction to leave everything behind in the cabin. Sadly there was no Arik official to address us neither was there any manner of first aid attention given to the passengers to manage stress and possible elevated blood pressures.
“After a while our cabin luggage were brought to us and we had to leave from there to go through the Ghana immigration to our individual destinations.
“I’m highly discouraged that this near crash major incident was not reported in the media 2 days after and I suspect a cover up by Arik and the authorities. So I have chosen to use the social media to ensure this news gets out.”
The passenger lamented the airline’s treatment of its passengers and implored the NCAA to ground the airline until the circumstances of the mishap is known.
“Why ArikAir put a plane without oxygen masks in the air?” she queried.
“Why ArikAir failed to provide support for traumatised passengers after landing?”
“ArikAir acted extremely irresponsible & knowingly endangered d lives of those passengers by breaching basic safety regulations.We demand a proper investigation into this incident,” she said.
The Consumer Protection Council (CPC) yesterday confirmed the incident, saying the NCAA was exercising scrutiny and precautions to continue to ensure safe operations and customer satisfaction.
