Antonis Mavropoulos, a Greek national, was saved from the doomed Ethiopian Airlines flight bound for Nairobi, Kenya after he arrived two minutes late at the gate, he said.
Mavropoulos said that he only learned about the fate of more than 150 people on board the flight when authorities questioned him why he has not boarded the plane.
Instead of protesting, authorities informed him to pray for the passengers and crew. It turned out that it was his lucky day because Nairobi-bound Boeing 737 crashed just minutes after an early-morning take-off from Addis Ababa.
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“My lucky day,” said in a Facebook post showing a photo of his ticket. Mr. Mavropoulos, president of the not-for-profit International Solid Waste Association, was traveling to Nairobi to attend the annual assembly of the UN Environment Programme.
According to an earlier airlines’ bulletin, the Boeing 737 plane, carrying 149 passengers and eight crew members, was on a regular scheduled flight to Nairobi when it crashed at around 8:44 am Sunday.
The airlines said that people holding passports from more than 30 countries, including a number of UN workers, were on board the said flight.
The Philippines’ Department of Foreign Affairs has yet to issue a bulletin whether Filipinos were on board the flight.
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