Ahmed Khalid was luckily spared from the ill-fated Ethiopian Airlines plane crash after his connecting flight from Dubai to Addis Ababa got delayed.
In an interview with Global News, Khalid said that he was supposed to be one of the passengers of the said flight but he was not able to make it after he reached Addis Ababa later than expected.
Khalid came from Dubai and was about to board the flight from Addis Ababa to Nairobi.
“Because of the delay from Dubai, I missed the first flight (the Addis Ababa-Nairobi flight that crashed). So, when I reached Addis Ababa, they told me to take the next flight, which is at 11:00 and I said it’s fine,” he said.
He also narrated how people reacted at the airport when the plane crash happened.
“Everyone was asking the cabin crew what was happening but no one was saying anything. They were just going up and down until one passenger saw on his mobile that the first plane which had just flown, like six minutes after it took off, just crashed,” he said.
His comments came as others waited outside the airport in Addis Ababa and in Nairobi for news about their relatives who were on board the ill-fated plane.
Aside from Khalid, another man, Greek national Antonis Mavropoulos was saved from the doomed flight bound for Nairobi after he arrived two minutes late at the gate.
According to the airlines’ bulletin, the Boeing 737 plane, carrying 149 passengers and eight crew members, was on regular scheduled flight to Nairobi when it crashed at around 8:44 am Sunday.
The plane took off from Addis Ababa at 8:38 am local time.
Harro Ranter, founder of the Aviation Safety Network, which compiles information about accidents worldwide, quoted the Ethiopian Airlines CEO to have said, “There were no defects prior to the flight, so it is hard to see any parallels with the Lion Air crash yet.”
The Ethiopian plane was new, having been delivered to the airline in November.
The CEO of Ethiopian Airlines earlier listed more than 30 nationalities of passengers who were killed in the plane, including 32 Kenyans, 18 Canadians, nine Ethiopians, eight Italians, eight Chinese citizens, eight Americans, seven British citizens, seven French citizens, six Egyptians, five Dutch citizens, four Indians, four people from Slovakia, three Austrians, three Swedes, three Russians, two Moroccans, two Spaniards, two Poles and two Israelis.
Reportedly, there was also one citizen from each of the following countries: Belgium, Indonesia, Somalia, Norway, Serbia, Togo, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sudan, Uganda, and Yemen.
This is one of the few instances when delayed flights can be a life-saver