John Ighodaro
5 September 2008
At Busi 2 in Obanliku Local Government Area of Cross River, the crash site of the Beechcraft 1900D, it was difficult to believe that the beautiful far flung Sankwalla mountains had been hiding a tragic story not only from Nigerians but from the international community for the past six months.
From a remarkable distance, the mountain did not betray its treacherous nature because one could
NEMA DG, Muhammed Bida fieding questions from news men shortly after visiting the scene of the crash.
see a huge, voluptuous cloud resting on the mammoth mountain like a piece of sky that had fallen to earth.
One didn't get to see the treachery of the mountain, but you felt it because of what you had come to know about the mountain, that it has in its bowels the wreckage of the Beechcraft aircraft along with the remains of human beings.
Some of the villagers who live at the foot of the mountains expressed some kind of joy when Vanguard visited the place saying the incident would expose their village to the larger Nigerian community and therefore, hopefully bring about some development.
According to the Community secretary, Mr. John Hipeh, "It was a search party of 25 people that discovered the wreckage of the plane." He claimed that they had not stopped searching for the plane ever since the incident.
Asked if one could speak with a member of the search party that found the wreckage, he said they had all gone to the farm, insisting that he himself was not part of the team.
How was it found, he was asked being the community secretary and he began: "They came upon the site of the crash on Saturday.
When they returned to the village, they informed us and we then went ahead and informed the Council Chairman, Dr. Ebunshua Godwin. The Council chairman then asked them to go back on Sunday to bring items from the wreckage as evidence that they had actually found the plane.
They went back on Sunday and picked some items including the international passport of the pilot."
According to him members of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) came to the place on Monday to inspect the site and Wednesday a combine team of NEMA officials and other agencies came to the site to pick the skeletons of the victims along with some other items."
The chairman of the Local Government Council could not be reached as he was said to have traveled to Calabar but his personal assistant, Mr. Uleke Gabriel who spoke to Vanguard.
According to him, "We went there on Wednesday to pick some items from the wreckage including the remains of the victims. Doctors were there, the police Commissioner was there, the Council chairman was there, NEMA officials were there and some Airforce officials too."
The community secretary, Mr. John Hipeh was of the view that if the area had GSM network, one or more of the occupants of the ill-fated plane might not have died in view of the fact that one of the skeletons was found sort of crouching under a tree a few distance from the wreckage, indicating that he may have crawled out safely from the wreckage and was therefore in a position to call for help, but "there is no network here as you can see."
Also speaking, a member of the community, Mr. Joseph Ovu said, "I live here. I heard that the plane was discovered on Saturday. Then yesterday, (Wednesday), we saw a plane hovering around here and we were told that it is the government people that had come to pick the dead bodies of the victims of the crash."
Joseph Ovu said he was happy that the plane was found in his village because "it will bring attention to my village because this place is underdeveloped. I am a hunter. Most young people here are hunters.
We do other things, but we do those things alongside hunting. We are also farmers. I, particularly I am into a lot things. I can produce pure water, I know a bit of plumbing and I am a footballer. I would like to go to school, but there is no money. All we have in this village is a primary school. No electricity, no pipe borne water and no GSM network. Tell MTN, GLO, Zain and others to come and open networks here. If we had networks, perhaps that pilot would not have died."
In her own response Miss Priscillia Urubulam said, "They found the plane last Saturday. I was very happy when I heard that they have found it in my own village, Ijua Busi 2. I want government to help us.
You can see that we are surrounded by mountains here. We want government to come and repair our roads."
For Mr. Kanung Augustine it was a great surprise when they learnt that the plane had been found in his village.
"We heard about the news on Saturday in the evening. It was about 6 to 7pm when those people came down from the mountain. It was a search party. Those guys now delegated about three persons, infact three of them to go to the council chairman and inform him of what they had seen. The chairman wanted evidence and they went back and brought evidence like the international passport of the pilot.
On Tuesday, NEMA people came to the mountain and left. Then yesterday, they came back to pick the bones of the victims."
A few kilometers from Busi 2, Vanguard spoke with the Station Manager of Bebi Airstrip where the ill-fated plane was supposed to have landed in March and the manager, Mr. Chimere Okoronkwo said, "I actually cannot tell you what that plane was doing over there. Do you know that after the crash, about 30 aircraft had since landed here.
Aero Contractors, Overland , and of course, the plane that brought those who came to investigate the crash. Since 2005, planes have landed here 500 times," he added.
He explaind that the Bebi Airstrip is equipped with Non-Directional Beacon (NDB), Landing Lights and Instrumantal Landing Systems (ILS) although he said that the ILS was not fully completed.
He also told Vanguard that the black box of the ill-fated Beechcraft aircraft had not been found yet.
It all started on March 15, 2008 when the aircraft, belonging to Wings Airlines took off at the Murtala Mohammed Airport on Saturday, March 15, 2008 on its way to Obudu Cattle Ranch in Cross River State to pick Governor Liyel Imoke along with the state executive council members who had been at the ranch on a retreat.
The plane never arrived its destination. The incident sparked off a flurry of search activities that came to nought.
Three days after the disappearance of the aircraft, Vanguard spoke to one of the pilots who for hours had been engaged in the search exercise and this chopper pilot who preferred anonymity expressed doubts that occupants of the plane could still be alive even then.
According to him, "I doubt if the occupants of the plane would be alive. This plane disappeared on Saturday and we still have not located where it fell. You can see I am just back from a search mission. So far we've not found the aircraft. We've been flying over swathes of land, combing the forests but there has been no breakthrough. Perhaps the aircraft fell into a deep valley inside the thick virgin forest and you know what that means."
Asked even then if he had access to modern search facilities, he answered in the affirmative.
"Oh yes, we have facilities, but meanwhile we have not found the plane. We hope to continue with the search tomorrow," he had added.
Soon after that the Minister of State for Transport and Aviation addressed a press conference where he claimed that the plane had been found.
When contacted, that same pilot told Vanguard, "the plane has not been found."
Told that the Minister of State for Transport and Aviation had told the press that the ill-fated plane had been found, the pilot had replied, "that is the Minister's own opinion, but I am telling you it has not been found. I am one of those searching for the plane."
Subsequently the Minister apologised, explaining that he was misinformed and the search continued.
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