ADC 086, Itoikin: 30 years after

How did this story begin?

It began with a news item broadcast by the BBC on Thursday 7 November 1996 with Julian Marshall as newsreader. This radio bulletin aired at about 6pm on that day, barely an hour after the aircraft operated by Aviation Development Company had crashed, 34 nautical miles from Lagos, near Itoikin.

At the time that this bulletin was read, it was not clear whether the plane was missing or had crashed but the bulletin suggested that a plane that was declared missing had been found intact. No confirmation was available as to whether there were any survivors.

On the day in question, (8 November 1996), I was assigned to monitor news coming from international sources among which the BBC Focus on Africa was given priority because of its extensive assets across the continent and its ability to connect across all regions to a localised audience of listeners.

In no time at all that initial bulletin set off a frenzy. Information was vague; it lacked the categorical or commanding tone that provided the assurance needed to break the news but it was the ‘Beeb’ anyway and an institution that everyone in the business held in the highest regard.

It was not about veracity but about how to carry a story that lacked the gravitas to convince anyone.

Typical of the Channels newsroom, we got to work and the MD was notified. He worked his phones and was very much on his toes chasing leads. In fact, he led the Channels TV crew to ADC’s Opebi headquarters, which was walking distance from the station’s Etiebet’s Place office along Mobolaji Bank Anthony way. Further down the road from the station was the airport, which would by the next day see a steady stream of reporters, security agencies and government parastatals converge on the grounds — all in search of this story.

By the evening of the 7th, the airline had confirmed that the Lagos-bound ADC 086 Boeing 727-231 had taken off from Port Harcourt at about 3.52pm, twenty minutes behind the scheduled departure time and was enroute to Lagos. There were 144 souls on board, 134 passengers and 10 crew. It should have been a 45-minute flight.

When the aircraft lost contact, it set off a frenzy across ADC’s offices including the operations room which is the fulcrum and centre of every wheel up and touch down.

I remember clearly Godwin Aleoghena (may his soul rest in peace), who went by the call sign Oscar Mike. In layman’s parlance — it was the coded way of identifying his role and designation as Operations Manager. It was Aleo, as friends and colleagues called him, who guided me through many of the reports I did and explained aviation lingo to me as I posed so many questions, and of course with all the zeal and yet ignorance of a rookie. It was ironic that all my life I had been on planes but didn't know what basic terminology meant. I remain grateful for his time and tutelage as it gave my reporting an edge. This ensured that I told this story from a technical and professional perspective.

When it became clear that a Mayday situation was suspected, it was the duty of Oscar Mike to reach another official Charlie Papa. Charlie Papa in a nutshell was the Chief Pilot Capt. Fola Akinkuotu to break the news and begin the process of coordinating a search and rescue or at worst, a search and recovery signifying that finding passengers and crew alive was no longer possible.

The ADC family was a close-knit one, they had an easy-going camaraderie amongst themselves. This was evident as we converged on the domestic wing of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport. I saw fear, hope, anticipation, dread and a Pandora's box of emotions masked by silent prayers and trepidation as word began to filter through that the coordinates had been mapped out and ground zero now had a location waiting for the processes to begin.

I arrived at the airport that Friday, a day after the crash. Among the passengers was a notable critic of the Abacha government, Professor Claude Ake. I single him out for mention because at some point, it was speculated that an incendiary device may have resulted in the tragic events of ADC 086. That theory made the rounds until the investigation dispelled any and all insinuations. Despite this conclusion, many to this day, thirty years after, are reluctant to accept the findings of the report.

As a journalist, I was privy to certain conversations and heard at first hand from some of the investigators that there were aspects of the evidence at the crash site which they could not reconcile with the account that was eventually published.

As the team began to move from the airport to locate the remains of ADC 086 and any survivors, my gut instinct told me to follow the leads I had and stay with the story. My office had instructed me to retrieve a tape from the intern who was asked to hold the fort until a senior member of the team could arrive to relieve him. I was barely a year on the job and to all intents and purposes, it was too big a story for someone who had no track record but with my steely resolve and my personal philosophy of impossible does not exist and failure is not an option. I knew that I had no choice but to prove myself. I disregarded the brief, ordered my colleague back to the office with a message “please tell the MD I think I am on to a story, I don’t know what I will find or when I will be back but I will follow my instinct and stay on it”.

That was my parting shot as I got into our official car with my dear friend Paul Ibe who graciously told me what he overheard and it tallied with my own suspicions based on a conversation that unfolded with some members of ADC about the location of the crash site. To show that we were partners in this, I offered him a ride in our official vehicle — and so, off we went in search of 086.

As we approached the turn-off from Ikorodu roundabout hot on the tail of a convoy of vehicles some of which belonged to the SSS, we were accosted and turned back, but we were relentless and as news hounds, we would die trying to get this story. We wondered why they were turning us back. In 1996, we were under an oppressive and brutal military junta with a record of human rights violations that was unrivalled. I was on to the biggest news story and I was determined to forge ahead regardless of the obstacles.

Under the cover of darkness, we continued this journey, hoping that we would not be detected. It was at least an hour, and the bad stretches of road stole time we did not have on a journey whose destination was uncertain. We approached a bridge, and behold, ground zero in plain sight. It announced itself, the riverbank came alive with headlamps from vehicles lighting up the night. Security personnel stood armed to the teeth, as though ready for combat. That was the confirmation we needed. We had arrived at the vicinity of the crash, it tallied with the coordinates that had led the team to the Ejirin/Itoikin area. The search and rescue teams had deployed personnel as far as Papalanto. It was 06°37′08″N 03°49′33″E.

The Itoikin jetty that night was crowded with police, military and many plain-clothes intelligence officers whose menacing looks gave away their cover. What were they doing at the jetty? Were they the first responders? What purpose would it have served to keep journalists away? This had also been our experience at the airport in Lagos earlier that day.

The night was as dark as it was tense with car doors opening and slamming shut, tyres screeching, one not only sensed the urgency but saw it first hand. Beyond the lights, hushed conversations and a flurry of activity were local fishermen — eyewitnesses who were speaking about what they had seen. The accounts ranged from an explosion to the aircraft plunging into the river. I asked one witness in pidgin: “Point for me where e happen.” Then: He led me to the jetty and, by the river, described what he saw — debris falling from the sky.

For me, telling this story without clear pictures posed the biggest challenge, we were at ground zero but there was nothing to film. My cameraman, Joseph Ntaji, and I agreed to focus on the wide body of water illuminated by car headlamps “Just roll. Take pictures of the water and whatever is floating on it. That is our story.”

That night, we got our wide-angle shots of the riverbank, the cars and people who came (presumably) to assess the situation and plan a course of action — and the water lilies and objects floating on the water. That was all there was to see that night.

Thirty years ago, technology was not what it is today. Very few had access to the mobile 090-phone popularly called nought-nine-nought phones. My MD had one but as I had no communication device my next challenge was to make sure that we got back to Lagos in good enough time to meet the flagship bulletin, The News at Ten.

So began the journey back to Lagos from Itoikin, through Ikorodu and back to HQ along Mobolaji Bank Anthony way. As newsmen, we are trained to ensure that a story that is fluid must make the bulletin sooner rather than later and as developments unfold, for us to be on top of the narrative as opposed to playing catch-up.

We arrived at the office just before 10pm and had to climb more than 100 steps to get to the fifth floor as the lifts in Etiebet’s Place ceased to function after 5pm. Panting and gasping for breath, I was met by my line managers Lekan Ashimi (now deceased), who had a huge influence on how I turned out; our chief correspondent, KD Uranta; and our revered MD who asked me “Stella, What have you got?” and with fear and trepidation I began almost tearfully “MD, not much, just lights and darkness over the stretch of water where they said the plane crashed”. We moved to the machines for him to see firsthand, this was cutting it fine and meant that a voice-over or a script would not have made the bulletin. Suffice it to add that if I had had the technology we take for granted today, I would have sent pictures ahead, recorded my voice and updates for the ticker to reflect real-time developments.

That done, the MD’s countenance gave me some comfort: I had not undertaken an exercise in futility.

Putting me live on the news was a spur-of-the-moment decision. It was accompanied by rapid-fire instructions — all I was able to do was ask one question; “MD what am I supposed to say or do?”

Mrs Momoh was the news Anchor — with her there I knew she would serve as a buffer and manage any disaster waiting to happen, so I asked again “MD what am I supposed to do” and he replied, “Be calm, use the pictures to tell the story”.

I thought I was done with this assignment but alas, before I knew it, “Oga KD” was logging me to go back to Itoikin. The daily commute and coverage began and from that day, I became the “Ejirin reporter”.

The bare facts at the Itoikin jetty that many may not know are these: The aircraft was never recovered. What was seen two days after the crash when the search and recovery team began combing the river were bits of debris — no bodies recovered and the largest chunk of what was left of ADC 086 was a mangled engine block.

Arguments raged with ferocious intensity over how many lives were lost that day: 143 or 144. At the cenotaph, which carries a roll call of every soul on board, nine crew are etched in marble, not ten, alongside 134 passengers.

To this day, many have still been denied closure — an investigation found human error and not a bomb or lack of maintenance as the cause of the crash.

Air traffic control cleared ADC 086 onto a heading that in fact put it in the path of another aircraft, Triax. The TCAS — the collision avoidance system on board — alerted the crew to the traffic ahead. What followed was an argument between the controller and the pilot, and an overcorrection that put the aircraft into a stall from which it could not be recovered. Could this air accident have been avoided? Or is there a missing piece of the puzzle yet to be uncovered?

As I stayed on this story, these were the things I contended with.

The first test was the pictures. I had none — or none that looked like anything. A body of water in the dark, headlamps on a riverbank, objects floating that could have been anything at all. Confusion on one side, the need to think quickly on the other, and behind both of them the philosophy of the newsroom that raised me: there is always a story, even when there is none.

Then there was the water itself. I have a phobia of it, and I got into a speedboat with the Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Mike Akhigbe, and the Chief of Defence Staff, Admiral Ogohi, with adrenalin pumping and the phobia, for those hours, gone. The story was the only priority. My fear of the water was not.

There was the crash investigator, Alex Ajuyah, and his observations. At some point he suspected there was more to the accident, and he referenced the presidential fleet crash of January 1996, in which Ibrahim, the first son of the Head of State, General Sani Abacha, had died.

There was the backstory: the passenger manifest, the regime, and the whispers that a bomb had brought the plane down.

And there was my own part in it, simpler to describe than to do. Hours of asking questions about aviation and avionics, learning the lingo, leaning on experts to feed me information and to explain terminology to me.

And there was what it did to me. I was barely a year into the job, and I had to reckon with how a story of this weight shapes a young reporter — and with what of it has stayed, thirty years on.

And there was the ADC family. Covering this assignment gave me access to them at a time when they were struggling to come to terms with what had happened, and absorbing an intrusion they did not need.

It was about duty, responsible journalism and honouring the trust reposed in me to tread the path of professionalism, empathy and decency as I probed, researched and stayed with a story that in every sense of the word evoked intense grief, stunned relatives of victims and the close-knit ADC family even to this day.

May their souls continue to rest in peaceful repose.