February 24 2016

This is a very short story, with the horror still clear in my memory as though it happened yesterday. I almost became acrophobic after this incident, but my school was so far away from home and my parents weren't ready to risk me coming home by road. They ignored all my plea to travel by road and I decided not to come home on short breaks using cost as a valid explanation for them to see reasons. Well it worked for a while but I had to come home again eventually. I remember entering the plane again praying in my heart that even a glimpse of what happened the last time should not repeat itself again… thankfully the nex time went well and the one after.

WHAT HAPPENED?

It was like every other time I was going back to the boarding school from home, the process was sweet and I was more happy that I was going alone that day. Somehow that day felt memorable so I decided to take a picture and save it in my cloud archive. Unknowingly to me, the memory I would be having would be a nightmare. So the plane took off as usual, but this time we started noticing the clouds changing at some point. A thunderstorm was coming and then the pilot made an announcement that further brought panic to everyone onboard. Remember how I normally brag about laughing at the face of danger, this wasn't one of those times because I was extremely terrified to my bones.

The news wasn't what got me terrified, it was what happened next, that got me terrified. After the pilot tried calming everyone and explaining that he couldn't find a landing spot because he couldn't see anything, the plane had to stay at a spot for four hours. I wasn't even scared at this point, I believed I was in safe hands at least (Trusting the pilot). The thunderstorm was hitting heavily, but I tried to keep my cool. However, I lost my cool the moment the plane started going down with full velocity. Everyone was screaming, crying and shouting while I just froze in panic until the plane eventually stopped. An old man even peed himself and no one could blame him because even me nearly peed on my seat.

Before take off

The pilot eventually calmed us down by telling us they ran out of gas at a point and were trying to refill. But at that point I just wanted to go back home. I wished I could just roll back time and go back home without ever entering the plane in the first place. This still stands as my number one worst travel experience to date. The moment we finally landed Lagos which was one of the worst plane landing experience I have ever witnessed, everyone was already standing up waiting for the door to open so we could get out of that God forsaken thing of a plane. A lot of people first sat on the floor to catch their breath, but I waited till I entered the waiting room and just sat there for about 20 minutes even though my luggages were ready for pickup.