“I boarded Arik air flight W3304 to Accra on Tuesday 06/03/2018. The name
of the aircraft is STEPHEN. It was a Dash 8 NextGen propeller aircraft. The
flight took off precisely 7.20pm (Lagos time)
35 minutes into the 55 minutes flight, I started perceiving something
smelling like a burning stuff. Shortly after the guy sitting next to me
asked if I perceived any smell of burning stuff and that confirmed my worst
fears. Before you could say jack, smoke has filled the cabin. The air
hostesses were busy scampering around opening the cabins and the lavatories
to check if they could trace the source of the smoke without success.
While that continued, the oxygen masks that were always being advertised
during the safety demo prior to take-off couldn’t be released instead we
were handed tissue papers (otherwise called serviets) to use to cover our
noses to minimize and filter out possible carbon monoxide inhalation.
About 5 minutes after, precisely with 15 minutes of flight time remaining,
the pilot came on the public address system to inform us that they have
smoke coming into the cabin and that they don’t know the source and that
they have DECLARED EMERGENCY”.
At that point we knew that our lives were only in God’s hands. Everyone
prayed to his/her Gods.
To the glory of God, the flight successfully landed by 8.15pm (7.15pm Accra
time) to the waiting of several fire service trucks at Kotoko International
airport, Accra.
We were evacuated into a waiting bus with instruction to leave everything
behind in the cabin. Sadly there was no Arik official to address us neither
was there any manner of first aid attention given to the passengers to
manage stress and possible elevated blood pressures.
After a while our cabin luggage were brought to us and we had to leave from
there to go through the Ghana immigration to our individual destinations.
I’m highly discouraged that this near crash major incident was not reported
in the media 2 days after (today is 08/03/2018) and I suspect a cover up by
Arik and the authorities. So I have chosen to use the social media to
ensure this news gets out.
Kindly keep forwarding this message till everybody is made aware of the
quality and kind of services Arik air gives and the possible cover ups
before something terrible happens.
If anyone is in doubt, I can be reached through [email protected] and I
can provide my phone number for further verification.”
