Of course they will blame the dead pilots

Last month, a report by the team of American and Nigerian experts who investigated the Dana plane crash of June 2012 blamed pilot error for the tragic death of all 153 people on board. Another one released just last week also blamed pilot error for the crash that killed late governor of Kaduna state Ibrahim […]

Last month, a report by the team of American and Nigerian experts who investigated the Dana plane crash of June 2012 blamed pilot error for the tragic death of all 153 people on board. Another one released just last week also blamed pilot error for the crash that killed late governor of Kaduna state Ibrahim Yakowa and former National security adviser, Patrick Azazi. Seven years earlier, the Bellview crash of October 2005 was blamed on pilot error. The aviation minister of the time was quoted as saying this. It seems the easiest way out for both airlines and aviation authorities is to blame the dead pilot, probably because he or they are not there to defend themselves. 
But my experience on a Turkish airline flight in August 2008 makes me believe that pilots lost in any air crash deserve a hero status because they usually put up the fight of their lives to save themselves and others. It all began when we boarded the plane from Istanbul to Lagos. It was a fairly uneventful flight. The digital-age plane had a permanent display of time-to-destination as well as a map of the plane’s movement across continents and seas. The last time I looked at the digital clock was when it said 10 minutes to destination. I quickly rummaged through my handbag to reach my charbi (Islamic rosary) in order to do my normal take-off and landing, as well as turbulence- in- the- air supplications.
So absorbed was I in my prayers that I had no idea we were standing still and the clock was reading 00:00 to destination, until the passenger man on the seat across the aisle from me said: ‘We have been on this position for a while now when are we going to land?’ Because the question was directed at me I looked up at the clock before I answered: ’It must be VIP movement’, thinking he knew what I meant.
‘VIP what?’ He asked and I suddenly remembered he had told me earlier that he had been living in Turkey for a long time and was bringing his Turkish wife of 15 years and their two teenage children, to Nigeria, for the first time. So I quickly explained that VIP movement meant that some top government officials’ flight was about to either take off or land so other planes had to wait a little, whether on air or on the ground, while the VIP movement lasted. The man was greatly amazed.
You see, the passenger was an Igbo Man and I didn’t even notice him in the beginning because I was busy trying to settle in with my two younger daughters in the middle row. It was when my youngest daughter asked to be taken to the lavatory that I saw him. When we returned to our seat he had addressed my daughter in Hausa. I turned back and greeted him, adding that I had no idea he could speak Hausa. He told me he had lived in Kano as a young man and even went to school there. It was at that point that he explained to me that the white lady sitting next to him was his wife while the two light-skinned boy and girl sitting right in front of them were their children. That was the beginning of our rapport.
But now, with our eyes glued to the display screen we suddenly noticed the flight altitude moving from around five hundred to six thousand miles above sea level. My husband, who was on the seat right in front of me, next to our son and eldest daughter, turned that very moment and said. ‘Al’amarin sai addu’a.’ (This calls for prayers). I lifted my charbi to show him that addu’a was what I had been doing, but I also added ‘I thought it was VIP movement.’ My husband shook his head and said ‘I doubt very much, I think we are in trouble’ he added in a very low voice.
And that was the beginning. For the next two hours we did nothing but pray while the pilots moved from one airport to another without succeeding to land. While we followed the map we saw how they first flew from Lagos, our original destination, to Abuja airport then to Accra in Ghana and then to Lome in Togo. We were to learn the following morning that they tried all they could but the plane’s tyres refused to come down. When the problem first occurred in Lagos they had tried to make contact with the control tower only to discover that the plane’s navigational equipment had all broken down. In other words there was no way we could make contact with the outside world. We were in a missing plane. Indeed we had already been reported as missing to families and friends who had gathered to pick their returning relations at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport.
A passenger who phoned his wife as soon as we finally landed at Lome international airport, said the wife had told him that they were all on their knees in Lagos praying, when his call came to say we had landed safely in Togo. That must have complemented our desperate spiritual efforts in the darkened hall of our ‘missing plane’. At first there was no contact between us and the cockpit. The pilots had so concentrated their efforts at getting us to land safely that they forgot we were getting restless at the lack of communication.
Another possible explanation might be that because about seventy percent of the passengers were asleep when we first reached Lagos, they had convinced themselves that we were either all asleep or too sleepy to notice the elongated flight. It was only when the noise from some desperate passengers became too disturbing that the flight attendants came out to assure us that the pilots were trying their best to solve the problem, and that it was just a small problem.
TWIN MIRACLES AT LAST
While we continued to pray, our charbis working extra time, the map showed our plane making its way back to Lome again. Suddenly the plane swerved to the right side, attempting to land by the right wing (the tyres wouldn’t come down remember) and the move was so jolting that most of those sleeping, including my three younger children all woke up at that moment. Having failed to crash land by the right wing, the captain again attempted to land via the left wing of the plane and again the move was so jolting that most passengers rose in prayers calling unto God in every name, through every creed they knew.
Then all of a sudden our twin miracles happened, the tyres chose that very moment to come down and staff at the Lome international airport, who had closed for the night because it was not a 24-hour airport, suddenly decided to put on the lights on the runway. They were to tell us later that they had seen the plane in distress, hovering over them, and had made up their minds to help, though they were not expecting any flights that very moment. The Togolese minister of aviation was summoned not long after we landed, and he immediately arranged for us, over 200 passengers of different nationalities, to be taken to a sea-side hotel for the night. Though traumatised by the experience, I still marvelled at their efficiency.
Apparently our pilot had decided to crash-land after realising that he had used up almost all his fuel, and a crash landing at that stage might lead to very little or no fire at all. When he came to address us the following morning, I found out that he was an elderly man. He must have used everything he learnt in the course of his career in trying to save us the night before. Many of the passengers refused his entreaties that we should get on the flight and fly to Lagos. These people went to Lagos by road. The rest of us who risked another ride on the ‘repaired’ plane reached Lagos safely in 40 minutes.
Therefore, it isn’t always pilot error when plane crashes occur, it is sometimes mechanical failure as happened in our case. We must not make a habit of blaming dead pilots for what they were in no position to stop. Questioning their competence at a time their families are mourning them is not fair at all. From this incident, we can see that all that airline operators need to do is to ensure that their engineers do a thorough job before each flight; and that old aircraft are replaced regularly to prevent accidents caused by wear and tear.