Former President Jerry John Rawlings says he was not surprised to hear the news that a plane had crash landed at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) over the weekend.
In his opinion, though the incident need not have happened, poor judgement and poor skill on the part of the pilot led to the tragedy.
An Allied Air Boeing 727 cargo plane with 5N-BJN embossed on it, overshot the runway at the KIA and smashed through the airport’s perimeter fence leaving in its wake littered lives of 10 innocent passengers.
Flight number DHV 111, operating from Lagos to Accra, on Saturday, at about 7:10pm somehow when landing, skidded off the runway, broke through the perimeter fence and went across the 37-Burma Camp road near the El-Wak Sports stadium and the Hajj Village, where Muslims in the country stay before they journey to Mecca, before ramming into a commercial 207 Benz minivan, sweeping it off the road.
Preliminary investigations however indicate that the Nigerian cargo jet landed in a pool of water because of some heavy rains that evening before over-running the runway.
Speaking at the 33rd Anniversary celebration of the June 4th Uprising which took place at the Victoria Park in Aflao, the former president, himself a seasoned pilot, whose plane landed shortly before the accident occurred, said the pilot could have chosen not to land due to the bad weather conditions.
According to him, similar challenges were faced by the pilot who was flying the plane he travelled in but his (pilot) experience was brought to the fore when he landed safely albeit with some difficulty.
“The weather was such that it was going to be a real test of experience….I’m a pilot and I know about these things….You don’t know how good a pilot is until there is an emergency…,” Mr Rawlings said.
Source: GhanaWeb
