Helicopter Mishap: Bankole Denies Report

Posted by admin House, Latest Politics, Legislature Saturday, March 5th, 2011

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole, has denied that he was involved in a near-fatal helicopter crash in Abule-Odo village in Obafemi Owode local government area of Ogun State.

Responding to a question on the issue at the presidential lounge of the Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos yesterday, the speaker simply shrugged his shoulders and said: “I wasn’t involved in any crash.”

According to the account, an AOS Helicopters chopper in which Bankole and the Ogun State governor, Gbenga Daniel, were travelling had an emergency landing in Abule-Ado village on Wednesday evening.

It was reported that the jet had technical problem mid-air and consequently lost contact with the control tower at the Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos. Accordingly, the pilot had to land in a primary school some kilometres from Abeokuta.

In an interview with LEADERSHIP WEEKEND earlier, a spokesman of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Mr. Sam Adurogboye, and his counterpart at the Nigerian Airspace management Agency (NAMA), Mr. Supo Atobatele, had denied knowledge of the incident.

“We called the company on Wednesday night and they said their helicopter was safe in Abeokuta, that nothing had happened to the helicopter,” Atobatele told our reporter on the telephone.

-Leadershipwp_posts