Former President John Agyekum Kufuor has revealed a chilling personal encounter with an aviation scare that nearly claimed his life during his time in office.
Speaking in an interview with Angel TV, the former president shared that the incident occurred in 2007 while travelling with an entourage of 12 to 16 people from Tripoli, Libya, to Khartoum, Sudan, after meeting the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
According to Kufuor, shortly after takeoff, the aircraft struggled to gain altitude over the vast Sahara Desert.
“All of a sudden, over the desert, the plane could not ascend. It had become heavy, and for almost 30 minutes, it refused to gain altitude. When you looked down, all you could see was the desert. Eeeii! What was about to happen to us here?” he recounted.
The tense situation was made worse by complete silence from the cockpit, with the pilot offering no explanation.
Flight attendants were seen hastily moving luggage towards passengers’ seats, further fuelling panic among those onboard.
In a critical decision, the pilot diverted the plane toward the Mediterranean Sea to stabilise the flight.
For nearly an hour, the aircraft continued struggling to climb before eventually making a safe landing back in Tripoli.
The former president’s account comes in the wake of the recent tragic military helicopter crash in Ghana, which claimed a total of 8 lives
