By Hilda Oghuma
Following the interview granted by the Executive Secretary of the National Summit Group (NSG), Mr. Tony Uranta to a group of journalists on Wednesday, June 6 in Lagos, on how a Federal Authority Airports of Nigeria (FAAN) official prevented him and the Chairman of Silverbird Group, Mr. Ben Murray Bruce from boarding the ill-fated flight on Sunday, June 3, 2012, Bruce has come out to say he was never billed to board the flight.
Speaking through a rep, Bruce says he wasn’t in Abuja on June 3, and couldn’t have tried boarding the Lagos-bound flight.
A Silverbird spokesperson tells us, ‘Mr. Ben Bruce couldn’t have been in Abuja and Lagos simultaneously because as at the time the plane crash occurred we were together in Lagos at an event.
Uranta had reportedly told National Mirror ‘On Sunday I was booked to leave on the flight. I got to the airport and a delay was announced. Blessedly for me, a FAAN staff at the airport, who saw me in the lounge came to me to advise me not to wait for that flight because Dana Air flight have been a bit unsteady in the last three days then’.
‘The official said the delay problem was due to the fact that most of the planes were developing fault and that they were carrying out emergency repairs on them at every airport they landed. He had no inclination of a possibility of a crash; he was just talking of how I will be delayed if I waited.
Ben Bruce speaks 'I was in Lagos during the crash’
