“Associate Airline has refused to compensate me” – Hostess on ill-fated plane carrying late Agagu

Oluwatoyin Samson, one of the hostesses and a survivor of the ill-fated Associated Airlines plane that crashed in Lagos State with the remains of former Minister of Aviation, Chief Olusegun Agagu, has told the media her ordeal in the hands of the management of the airline.

On 3rd October 2013, Akure bound Associated Aviation Flight 361, operated by an Embraer EMB 120 Brasilia, crashed on take off from Murtala Muhammed Airport.

Fifteen of the 20 people on board were killed..

The aircraft was on a charter flight taking the body of the former Governor of Ondo State, Dr. Olusegun Agagu for burial.

Oluwatoyin, who joined the company in 2000, was one of the people at the second Engr. Zakariya Haruna memorial lecture held in Lagos to recount her experience.

Dressed in a red gown and limping, due to injury she sustained from the crash, the middle-aged woman said the carrier omitted her name when they started paying the 30 per cent insurance to the families of the deceased and injured.

Oluwatoyin stated that she called the airline spokesman, Alex Emode, who advised her to get a lawyer because she granted an interview to the Accident Investigation Bureau upon her return.

“I told AIB nothing but the truth about the crash”, she said, adding that “In fairness to the crew and passengers that died, I don’t need to hide anything from AIB.

“My personal effect, recovered from the wreckage, has not been given back to me and it has been returned to Associated Airline by AIB”.

She disclosed that her lawyer wrote a letter to the company on her plight, adding that the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, was copied.

“To my surprise, Mr. Alex Emode told my lawyer on phone that I’m not a staff of Associated Aviation. I now asked him to tell me what I was doing onboard if I was not a staff of the airline”, she said.
“Is it a crime to survive an air crash? If I had died in the crash, would they have told my family that I am not their staff?”

Oluwatoyin said that Emode told a journalist that she went on shopping spree in South Africa.