Pandemonium as Towed Plane Incites Fear of Crash in Lagos

The towed plane

Barely 10 days after the one year commemoration of the death of 153 passengers on board the ill-fated Dana Aircraft 992, which crashed at the Iju-Ishaga area o Lagos, pandemonium erupted yesterday as rumors of another crash made the rounds. 

checks revealed that the rumors of the plane crash began when charred scraps and parts of an aircraft being towed by a truck stopped in front of Dapsey fillin station,  along the LASU-Igando road.

It was gathered that the American registered aircraft with registration number N972TF,  actually belongs to Late Apostle Gabriel Oduyemi of Bethel Ministries and had long been parked at one of the Airport facilities till Wednesday night when it was eventually removed.

But when contacted, the Spokesperson,  National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), South-west, Mr. Ibrahim Farinloye, dispelled the rumors, stressing that no such incident happened.

According to Farinloye,  there was no an air crash rather the aircraft that incited panic was being towed away from the airport according to a recent directive emanating from the presidency.

He said, “It was just the scrap of an aircraft being evacuated out of the airport, following the directive emanating from the office of the presidency to remove scraps and moribund aircrafts from the airport.

“We were there before the aircraft was towed. We were there to monitor proceedings and I can categorically tell you that our presence was not because of any plane crash rather to monitor."

While adding that the exercise is an ongoing process that will rid the airport of moribund aircrafts, he said it went unnoticed before because the evacuators had deliberately chosen to do it at night to avoid such public attention and inciting panic.

While urging Lagosians not to panic at such sights, he lamented that the uproar caused by the sight of the aircraft was one of the inherent dangers of social media where citizen journalism is rife.