Member-only story
Does The Ethiopian Air Disaster Signal Doomed Future of Air Travel?
Graphic content
Ever since the Dana Air Flight 992 nightmare, that happened on June 3, 2012 in my hometown of Lagos, Nigeria, my radar has been on alert for incidences of that nature, but even before then, there was the Air France Flight 447 crash back in June 2009. The flight took off from Rio de Janeiro and was headed for Paris when miscommunication between the operational system and the pilots caused the aircraft to stall. Normal functions were never resumed, and the plane plummeted in the darkness, and into the Atlantic Ocean.
The personal connection to this tragedy was the fact that Air France was my preferred air carrier for sporadic trips to Nigeria. British Airways or Virgin were the two popular choices back then, but for some reason, while planning the journey home in 2002, the pricing for Air France was considerably cheaper, and so my brother and I decided to go for it.
The night of our flight from Newark to Lagos was frigid and icy, which was a typical late December forecast, and we were grounded for almost an hour as the plane went through the process of deicing.
