Sosoliso accident survivor decries poor rescue operations

One of the two survivors of Sosoliso Airlines Flight 1145 crash at the Port Harcourt International Airport on December 10, 2005, Miss Kechi Okwuchi, has said that poor rescue and emergency operation in the country contributed largely to the death of the passengers on board that ill-fated aircraft.
Okwuchi, who was a student of Loyola Jesuit College, Abuja, but now at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas, USA, stated this at the Memorial/Symposium and Presentation of the “60 Angels Memorial Staff Residence” to honour the 60 students of the school who died in the crash.
She said if the airport had a good rescue and emergency system, many of the victims of the crash might not have died.
She said: “The first one that comes to mind is rescue. After the plane I was on crashed, the first fire truck that made it to the scene of the crash had no water. This shouldn’t be. Countries with developed aviation industries should have good emergency response systems. The second factor would be aircraft quality; the airworthiness of the planes we allow in our skies. There should be a standard for the quality of planes allowed to fly.”
She also lamented that since the crash in 2005 there had been other preventable crashes due to lack of air worthiness of the aircraft and pilot errors noting that many preventable air crashes had happened.
She added: “With each plane crash I hear about, a new pain is born. As my own memories replay in my mind, I know that somewhere back home a new set of families are grieving because they have lost loved ones, then another accident and still more families in pain.”