How we survived crash, by Feyi Agagu

late Agagu’s embalmed body
remained intact
*Cap remained on his head in the coffin
after crash’
*Crash site, 24hrs after
By Jide Ajani
If individuals took their instincts more
seriously, perhaps, the tragedy of last
Thursday involving the embalmed body of
late Governor Olusegun Agagu of Ondo
State and the burial team traveling aboard
the Associated Airline Flight, with
registration number SCD 361, may have
been avoided.
Indeed, Feyi, son of Chief Agagu, who was
on board that flight, may have been spared
the horrors of hospitalisation in the wake
of the tragedy.
He is lucky to be one of the survivors.
Sunday Vanguard has been informed that
shortly after the crash and the
hospitalisation of the initial nine survivors
including, of course, Feyi, it came to light
that there were strong indications just
before boarding the plane that all may not
have been well. Two of the survivors later
died that day.
Speaking to very close family friends and
sympathizers as well as very senior
government officials who came around on
Thursday afternoon, the young Agagu
disclosed that just a few minutes before
the passengers of the ill-fated flight
boarded, he did not feel very comfortable.
Mr. Feyi Agagu, son, survived.
According to the family insider Feyi spoke
to, “the young man said that once they got
to the tarmac before boarding and once he
sighted the plane, what struck him was the
seemingly very old look of the
plane”. Continuing, the source narrated:
“Feyi said he didn’t like the looks of the
plane. “He also said but for the importance
and significance of the trip, his inner sense
didn’t feel comfortable boarding the plane.
“In fact, Feyi said he told another survivor,
Femi Akinsanya, that the plane looked too
old and he didn’t feel like boarding.
“ But Feyi said he was told not to get
himself worked up needlessly since this was
not going to be his first time aboard a
plane neither would this be the first old-
looking plane that he would board.
“That was how he said he boarded the
plane”.
Sunday Vanguard was later made to
understand that the event which transpired
between Feyi Agagu and his brother-in-law,
Femi Akinsanya before they boarded that
plane suggested that the former may not
have had anything to do with the flight
arrangement for the movement of his
father’s corpse to Akure, the Ondo State
capital.
Though 23years old, the plane, according
to Balami David, the President of the
National Association of Pilots and
Engineers, during a television interview,
reportedly operated some days before the
ill-fated flight.
No matter.
Sunday Vanguard was told by the source
that Feyi recounted “how he and Femi
Akinsanya boarded the plane and moved
straight to the back end to take up seats.”
“Why Feyi chose the back seat”, the source
said, “was more a function of his state of
mind about the state of the plane rather
than a preference for taking a back seat.
“When they sat down, Feyi told me that he
and Femi simply prayed that they should
just take off and land safely, oblivious of
what lay ahead of them.
“Feyi said once they took off, everything
happened so fast.
“What he also told me was that both he
and Femi noticed what looked like a crack
not far from where they sat at the rear end
of the plane.
The ill-fated plane: The Embraer 120RT
Brasilia, registration number 5N-BJY, before
it crashed, Thursday.
“He said everything happened so fast that
by the time the plane crashed on the
ground, it was that crack that had been
noticed earlier that transformed into a
gapping exit point upon impact on the
ground.
“Feyi said the exit point created was where
he and Femi escaped through”.
Another source further revealed that most
of the survivors of the crash appeared to
be those seated at the rear end of the
plane.
This is further corroborated by the fact that
the first point of impact was the frontal part
which eventually caught fire soon after
crash-landing.
And whereas there were insinuations about
the entire crash, something much more
interesting was to be discovered when
rescue operations began.
The brown coffin in which was laid the
body of Agagu did not as much get
destroyed despite the impact of the crash
and the fatality number of 13.
More, the embalmed body of the late Agagu
remained intact inside the coffin when it
was opened for inspection, a source
disclosed to Sunday Vanguard.
TRAGEDY—The crash scene and rescue
operations.
That was not all.
The most intriguing part of the discovery
was that the body of the neatly dressed
Agagu who was to make a statement of
sartorial flamboyance even in death (he
was to be laid-in-state at a well organized
reception by the Ondo State Government
and his political associates) was not ruffled.
“The cap on his head stayed intact even
after impact”, a source told Sunday
Vanguard.
For a typically traditional society that
Nigeria is, these discoveries got tongues
wagging.
From the absurd to the very absurd, some
insinuated that there may have been more
to it than meets the eye for an accident
because after claiming 13 lives, the dead
was remained intact.
Sunday Vanguard learnt that the coffin
cargo was latched to the hooks in the cargo
compartment of the plane.
It was also gathered that the coffin was in
the rear end of the fuselage and, like those
who survived the crash, it enjoyed the
benefit of positioning.
However, aviation experts are of the view
that sitting at the rear end of the plane is
not a definite guarantee against fatality
during an air crash.
They use the ASIANA Airline flight which
crashed last July at the San Francisco
Airport. The Boeing 777, while attempting
to land at the sea-bordered airport, hit its
tail on the concrete
embankment, engendering a forced
ejection of some passengers along with
their seats. Those few passengers who died
in that crash were those seated at the rear
end.