AKWA IBOM GOVERNOR’S PLANE NARROWLY ESCAPES DISASTER

GOVERNOR GODSWILL AKPABIO.

Abuja (THEWILL) - A Hawker 900 plane conveying Governor Godswill Akpabio and his aides narrowly escaped a mid air collision over the weekend, THEWILL has learned.

Akpabio’s chartered aircraft was travelling from Calabar to Lagos at 24000ft above sea level when his pilot suddenly noticed another plane descending fast towards them around the Port Harcourt air space. Sensing the danger, his pilot swiftly dropped 5000ft in a dash and temporarily lost control of the plane.

The co-pilot, a gentleman named Ritman in his narration said, “we were flying at 24000ft above sea level when we noticed an aircraft above us coming towards Calabar and descending right into us. At about 400 metres to our aircraft, we made a mad descent because it was a bigger and faster plane. When our controls told us to go up, our plane got stalled and we had a free fall until the engine came back up again.”

Our checks revealed that the other aircraft was an Allied Air plane on a charter flight for the Central Bank of Nigeria. It did not have a functional Ground Collision Avoidance System GCAS, a device that functions like radar, which shows pilots the position and distance of aircraft(s) around them.

All persons who were in the governor’s plane are said to be okay except for a female flight attendant who passed out during the incident. She is however said to have received medical attention at an undisclosed hospital.

The incident has since been reported to the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) whom we are hoping will take proper steps towards ensuring the safety of our air space.