A Greek businessman who narrowly missed the Ethiopian Airlines flight which crashed and killed all 157 people onboard has posted his ticket on Facebook along with an emotional message about just how lucky he was.
Antonis Mavropoulos, who was travelling from Athens to Nairobi via Addis Ababa for an environmental conference, says he just barely missed the flight by two minutes, and was initially frustrated that staff wouldn’t let him on.
Speaking to Greece’s Skai Television, he said he was placed on a later flight:
I saw the last passengers going through, but the gate had already closed. I complained, in the usual way when that kind of thing happens. But they were very kind and placed me on another flight.
Mavropoulos says in his Facebook post that when he attempted to board the later flight, he was once again stopped by airport staff, who directed him to the security department, where he was informed that he was the only passenger to fail to board ET 302, which was now officially missing.
“A [staff member] politely told me not to protest and say I should thank God, because I was the only passenger who did not board Flight 302, which was still missing. … At first I thought he was lying, but his manner left no room for doubt,” he wrote.
“I felt the ground disappear under my feet. … I have written this to manage the shock that I’m feeling.”
Ethiopian Airlines says passengers from at least 35 countries were on the flight.
The crash has raised questions about the safety of Boeing’s new 737 MAX 8 jet, which also involved in the Lion Air crash which killed 189 people last October. Virgin Australia still has 30 of the planes on order.
