Nkiru asked her older sisters to meet them at the airport. And she had a special request for her mother: Could she make them yam porridge?
It was October 22, 2005, and Nkiru’s family was excited about seeing her. Nkiru was a joyful person, and everyone was looking forward to watching her open her wedding presents, which waited, wrapped in pretty paper with shiny bows. She and Chukwuemeka were deeply in love, and there was so much to celebrate.
Meanwhile, another passenger, Remilekun Olaniyan, was preparing to board Bellview Flight 201, which her husband had begged her not to take, pleading that she instead wait until Monday. But she was in a hurry to reach her destination and stubbornly refused to change her plans.
And passenger Linus Sabulu, president of the National Association of Nurses and Midwives, had participated in the association’s Nigerian conference and was so eager to return to his family, he made plans to take Flight 201, despite the fact his wife suggested he could stay over one more day and return home on Sunday.
The flight was full, and some travelers were frustrated when they were told that they could not board, that there was simply no room for them. They had no idea how lucky they were.
The 117 passengers who boarded Flight 201 on October 22 were mostly Nigerians, with one American and one Frenchman among them.
It was a stormy Saturday night as the Boeing 737 gathered power and rose into the sky, leaving the Labos airport behind. The twenty-four-year-old plane was bound for the Nigerian capital, Abuja. Soon after takeoff, the pilot issued a distress signal.
It was a hopeless cry for help.
Flight 201 crashed in the remote village of Lisa, killing all on board. The plane had been traveling at a tremendous speed and was buried on impact.
When TV crews arrived, they broadcast the horror for the world to see. The airplane that had been given a clean bill of health seven months before was now reduced to twisted chunks of metal. Luggage was ripped to bits. No one had had the faintest chance of survival.
Relatives of the victims went into shock. They could not believe their loved ones were dead. And, it may be, the victims themselves did not know that they were dead. Residents of Lisa began to see them.
The village of Lisa is thirty miles north of the ill-fated plane’s takeoff. The tragedy that put them in the news also wiped out their electrical power when cables were severed by the aircraft. But it was the haunting that was reported in the Saturday Independent on November 5, 2005.
Village council secretary Apostle Sikiru Lasisi told a reporter that he and a family member had witnessed the ghost of a victim walking past their home. “We live in fear when it gets dark,” he said, “because the spirits of the victims in the plane crash keep roaming the whole village….”
Another resident, Aremo Olubode, told the reporter that many women and children there were so frightened of the ghosts that they no longer slept in their own homes, opting instead to stay with relatives in neighboring villages.
Disembodied voices were heard at night, especially on the path that led to the crash site.
While most of the villagers respected the dead, a few heartless criminals had looted the plane, stealing valuables from the lifeless passengers before a recovery team could locate the crash site. Some wondered if the blatant disrespect could have riled the spirits.
The cries of the ghosts and the sight of wandering souls disturbed residents to the point that they lived in terror. “The situation has gone so bad that we no longer have the guts to walk at night, and if we do, it is usually in groups. If you doubt me, please spend a night with us here and experience what we go through every night,” Aremo challenged the reporter.
As of this writing, the villagers have yet to have their power restored. There is no word on the status of the ghosts. Let us hope that they have come to terms with their deaths and have moved on to a peaceful place.
Who knows how many tragic travelers are trapped in the nightmare of their doomed airplanes?
A horrible crash in Reno, Nevada, is yet another one for the books.
It was about one a.m., January 21, 1985, when Galaxy Flight 203 took off from what is today known as the Reno-Tahoe International Airport. The chartered flight held sixty-five passengers who were headed to Minnesota. Many of them had enjoyed a weekend of gambling in Lake Tahoe during the Super Bowl Sunday weekend. Tragically, the plane crashed in a field, shortly after takeoff.
Seventy passengers and crew members lost their lives.
The lone survivor was a seventeen-year-old Minnesota boy who was thrown free of the burning crash. He was found still strapped in his seat.
Today the area is covered by retail stores and parking lots. Let us hope that the spirits of the accident victims have been able to move on. That was not the case in the hours following the crash.