A United States flag carrier, United Airlines flight UA613, outbound from Lagos to Washington late Thursday night, declared an emergency and returned to Lagos in the early hours of Friday.
The flight, which had 245 passengers, eight flight attendants and three pilots, made a direct return to the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, MMIA, while outbound in Ivory Coast airspace.
One of the passengers, who refused to disclose his identity shared details of the incident.
According to him, “The flight took off at 11:50 pm. All through, we (passengers) did not experience any turbulence. We were flying well without any issue until we reached Senegal. At the time, it had been announced to us (passengers) that we could unfasten our seatbelts. The plane was on autopilot when it happened. We had also been served food and drinks.
“There were three pilots. The major one had gone to use the restroom and another took charge when we noticed a sudden drop. The impact of the drop resulted in my slamming my head against the plane’s roof. You can see in some of the pictures that I just showed you that there were blood stains on the plane’s roof.
“After hitting my head, I was unconscious for a while because one of the medical personnel on the plane was brave enough to assist me to regain awareness. When I regained consciousness, I saw that everyone was terrified. I heard people shouting ‘God of Chosen. God of Prophet Ebuka of Zion.’
“We were all frightened. One black flight attendant was so scared. In fact, there was a woman who wanted to use the restroom when the incident happened, she was badly injured. Three times, the plane dropped with force, and the pilot struggled to make the plane ascend.
This happened for 20 minutes, although we flew for about four hours. While this was happening, we were told by the pilot that navigation was lost. We were told so many things. However, the pilot was brave enough to successfully return us to Lagos.
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“When we landed in Lagos, we were all taken to Ibis Hotel, Airport Road, Lagos, where the airline promised to communicate to us through the hotel’s reception. However, at 12:00 pm on Friday, nobody communicated anything to us. Therefore, I had to come down from my room, go to the reception where I saw other passengers.
“One of the passengers told me that he had to go to their office (United’s) and had been booked for another flight for tomorrow (Saturday).
At that point, I joined another set of passengers going from the hotel to United’s office. On getting there, the airline wanted to book me on Turkish Airlines travelling this evening (Friday), but I rejected. I told them I would fly United at the same time tomorrow (Saturday) because it is a direct flight.”
