Flashback – Dr. Esther Longe survived ADC plane crash unhurt in Sokoto 17 years ago.(Read her Story)

In a plane that carried 106 passengers with only 9 survivors out of the nine, Esther Longe miraculously came out unhurt.

On board the ill fated pland were the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammadu Maccido, and his Senator son, Alhaji Badamasi Maccido as well as Sokoto Deputy Governor, Alhaji Garba Muhammed, they all died.

According to her
I was in a plane crash on the 29th of October 2006. I was just about to finish my national youth service.

For 2 years after the plane crash, I had what they call ‘survivors guilt’. Why would God save me so miraculously? Of the 106 people on the plane, only 9 survived and of the 9 that survived only 1 didn’t have any injuries and that was me.

People kept saying, “God has a plan for your life” and I’m like what kind of plan could this be? In November 2008, I was in church in Cardiff and I felt God say to me, “Yes I’ve saved you in this life, but salvation is a bigger gift and if you can accept salvation, you can accept this.” And that’s when I was able to make peace with it. I told God I may not be able to understand what the purpose of my life is but I promise to share my testimony with as many people and give you praise.

Now, I just obey God. I have no other choice. It’s no longer I that lives but Christ that lives in me literally.

My survival story

In February 2006, I got posted on NYSC and I remember people were ‘working’ their NYSC and I said I would not do that, but in my mind, I thought the farthest place they could post me to would be Edo State. Only for my class rep to tell me that they’ve seen the NYSC list and I was posted to Sokoto. I was like ‘What!?’ I remember my mum saying ‘oh you are not going’. And I said “If I don’t go in batch A and decide to go in batch B, the probability is that they are going to post me to the exact place”. She then put me on laps and prayed for me.

I would travel on a Wednesday, so my mum started fasting from Monday and she would not break until when she knew that I had landed on Wednesday. The prayers went on for the nine months that I was in Sokoto. I remember I was 21 and I was going to spread my wings so, I didn’t think that I was going to tell her that I was going to travel because I was an adult and adults travel all the time without telling their parents.

This was in October, I and my flat mate were going to see someone who had served with us in camp. I worked in the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) as a duty flight announcer. So, my flat mate and I went to go and visit one of our friends who had served with us in camp and was posted to Abuja. We went to see her for the weekend and as we were leaving, I started buying things I didn’t have in Sokoto.

That morning of the flight, October 29, I remember being woken up so I decided to read my Bible. I was reading Our Daily Bread and the Bible verse was James 4:13-17. They dropped me at the airport and I was waiting for the flight to take off. Because I worked at the airport, I recognised people who were travelling because Sokoto is a state where you are either very rich or very poor. It’s the same set of people who would travel overtime. So, when they got up to go, I followed them.

We got to the plane. You know northern heat, it was very hot and all of a sudden, it started to rain quite heavily. I started thinking to myself and wondered if they could fly in the rain. But I also thought to myself that I was sure they don’t cancel flights each time it rains. So, we got on the flight and then I heard somebody call me quite clearly Esther Kema Oda (my name at the time), and it was Esther Jeyibo . She was supposed to be coming back a week later but for some reason, she was coming back a bit early. So, she called me, and usually, for someone who was already upset for not sitting in front of the plane, Esther who was sitting at the back now called me to come sit beside her and I didn’t want to but I heard a voice saying to me “Esther be nice to people because you never know when you will need them”.

I actually said hi to her and ended up sitting beside her at the back of the plane. So, we took off and we were gaining altitude, and all of a sudden, the plane drops, and we thought it was just turbulence, but it drops again. The inner lights had gone out, children were crying, Muslims are shouting Allah, Christians, Jesus. But we still think that it’s really bad turbulence.

So, I look out of the window and see lightning and heard a loud noise and I look back and in front of me is grass. The plane had crashed. People ask me, did I black out or anything like that? I said “no”, but what I do say to them is that before that day, I had always believed in God, but that day, I believed in the ministry of Angels because literally, the same way I was in the sky, was the same way I was placed on the ground. Why this is remarkable is that Esther that was sitting next to me, the impact of the crash landed her somewhere else.

I didn’t know where we were. I was trying to unhook myself when I heard somebody call for help and it was Esther. So, I unhooked her and we came out of the debris of the plane and it was still raining and we didn’t know where we were. I saw a Muslim girl who was shouting for her brother. I thought the plane had broken in half and they were somewhere else. I remember her hand was broken and saying to her that at least you’re alive and your brother is fine wherever he is which didn’t turn out to be the case. I saw three ladies, one on top of each other. They were shouting for help. I saw this guy sitting and in my mind, I was like “Dude! We’re all in shock and we need help”. It was later I realised that he couldn’t have done anything because his legs were broken”. Those three ladies turned out to be the daughters of the Kogi State governor (At that time). So, I unhooked them.

By this time, Esther had come out of the debris of the plane and villagers had come. We now realised that what had happened was that the plane had crashed outside of the airport but the people in the airport did not know that the plane had gone outside of the airport. So, the villagers ran to the airport to get a van and came back with a white pick-up van which took the three of us that were able to move.

I called my friends and told them what had happened so, they came to get me and took me to a private hospital.

Shortly after, my mum called me and said “Esther, the airport in Sokoto must be crazy because I heard a plane that was coming to Sokoto crashed”. I said “Yes, it’s crazy”. I didn’t tell her that I was on the plane. But then, my flat mate who had gone with me to Abuja was waiting for the plane to drop us in Sokoto and come back to Abuja and take her to Lagos, but that never happened because the plane didn’t make it so Sokoto.

So, her parents went to greet my mum for surviving the crash. I said to myself, “how can you go and greet somebody that does not know her daughter was on the plane?”

So, I had to call my mum and said the plane crash that happened had me in it. She gave the phone to my brother and said she did not know what I was saying. I was later told that she looked in the mirror and said, ‘God, why?’ And God said to her, “My grace is sufficient for you, and my strength is made perfect in your weakness”, and that’s what she held on to.

The next thing, I was told I had to leave the private hospital and go to the government hospital where they were treating the survivors otherwise they would say that I died and they couldn’t find my body.

So, I went back to the government hospital, I was there for three days because they wanted to make sure I didn’t have any internal bleeding, which I didn’t have to the Glory of God.

The next day, I wake up by 4: a.m. and CNN was carrying the story and what we realised was that the only part of the plane that survived was the tail end where I was in.

Out of the 106 people that were on the plane, only nine survived, and out of the nine, only one didn’t have any injuries, that one was me. I was depressed for two years but God broke that.

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I did not read. Today, bingos born in the year are here constituting nuisance. Time flies.

Very touchy story

Thank God for his mercies..

Thank God this kpekus no waste..