Bomb Scare at Douala Airport?!

George Esunge Fominyen

Rather unusual occurrences have been replete in Cameroon in 2008. The most recent is this reported bomb scare on an Air France flight on the night of Monday 22 to Tuesday 23 at the Douala International Airport.

According to Mutations daily of 24 December 2008, it was at about midnight while all passengers were already aboard that an anonymous caller claimed that there was a bomb that would explode if the aircraft attempted to take-off.

For security reasons therefore, all the passengers were ferried out of the plane. All the luggage was off-loaded from the baggage hold and checked. The plane itself was cross-checked, a source told Mutations.

The incident that reportedly caused local authorities (Governor of Littoral, SDO of Wouri, Regional delegate for National Security) to rush to the Airport was finally declared a false alert. The passengers were encouraged to board the flight which left at about 0400 (Cameroon time) on 23 December 2008. 

All of this information reported by Mutations came from some workers at the airport. Unfortunately no senior airport,security or local authority could confirm or deny the information (as is often the case in Cameroon). The Regional delegate for national security for the Littoral even told the Mutations reporter that he went to airport simply because a friend of his was arriving from Indonesia!

("Approché par Mutations, Joachim Mbida Nkili, le Délégué régional de la Sûreté nationale pour le Littoral confirme avoir fait le déplacement pour l'aéroport dans la nuit de lundi dernier. " Mais c'était pour recevoir un ami qui revenait de l'Indonésie")

The newspaper, however claims to have a source who suggests that the false alert was the handiwork of a SCB-Credit Agricoles Bank employee who had wanted to stop their Director General from leaving the country at a time of uncertainty. A Moroccan bank has just taken over SCB-Credit Agricole and the workers are in a state of limbo about their situation.

("une source à la Scb Crédit Agricole croit savoir que " c'est certainement un employé de la banque qui a téléphoné pour empêcher que le Directeur général, Francis Dubut, ne voyage hier nuit. Les employés de cette banque étaient au courant du voyage de leur directeur général, coupable à leurs yeux de vouloir quitter définitivement le pays alors que la situation du rachat de la banque par un groupe marocain n'était pas encore bouclée.")

Now if that were to turn out as true...!

Anyway, what aggrieves me in the whole issue is this cloak around information in Cameroon. When really serious things happen, officials disappear and there is no real public communication. It is plain stupid! What is best, to brief people on a situation or to set the rumour-machinery at work? Nobody ever wants to comment. They are all waiting for their superior, who is waiting for his superior, who is waiting for his "hierarchie" and the thing continues to nothing...

When are we ever going to learn that there is always a way to tell something - no matter how delicate. If we can tell our brothers and sisters that our parents are dead - what could be harder to understand?

Comments

[Enow (Port-au-Prince)]

Gef,
This is just like Cameroon. We might say it is stupid, but I think it is more than stupid.

I believe it is a clear manifestation of the culture of "no accountability" and "no transparency" - two (key) basic principles of how government business should be done in Cameroon.

No one wants to take responsibility for anything, - remember how the Kenya Airways crash in May 2007 was managed.

I think we've got a serious leadership crisis in Cameroon - it is very worrying.

[GEF]

Indeed,

You mentioned the Kenya Airways crash in 2007. I still remember what a messy situation it was. What those of us on the ground saw and how the state managed to mis-handle communication on such a vital matter.

Imagine that the families of the crash victims are still yearning for the report... Without proper information, they now think government just wants to con them out of their settlements. Here is a story from the Post Newspaper of Monday 22 December 2008:

Mbanga Pongo Crash Report Delay Angers Victims
By Kini Nsom

Families of the victims of the Mbanga Pongo plane crash have accused government of deliberately delaying the report of the crash to cheat them of their right to sue for compensation.

One of the victims, Madam Yvette Fru, who lost her husband in the May 5, 2007, plane crash, said the delay in publishing the findings was causing them more pain.Meanwhile, the lawyer for some of the victims, Barrister John Fru Nsoh, has warned that his clients will lose the right to sue the Boeing Company if the report is not released before May 2009.

Speaking to The Post over the weekend in Yaounde, the Douala based lawyer said families of the victims have the right to sue for compensation if the report indicates that the plane crash was caused by a technical fault.

According to international aviation convention, the lawyer pointed out, his clients have only two years, starting from the date of the crash to sue the Aircraft Company for compensation. He said, if the government delays the report and publishes it only after May 2009, it will have no use to the victims.

On the other hand, he said if the findings are published earlier, indicating that the crash was due to a technical fault, the victims will sue the Boeing Company and General Electronics jointly and severally. Boeing is the company that built the body of the plane while General Electronics is the company that fabricated the engine.

Barrister Fru Nsoh who is defending the victims in collaboration with a US law firm in Seattle, Washington, wondered what was holding back government from publishing results of the crash that claimed 114 lives.

Two months after the Mbanga Pongo crash in the outskirts of Cameroon's economic capital, Douala, another plane crash took place in Tokyo-Japan. Its findings, he said, were published three months later. He wondered what was holding back the findings of the Mbanga Pongo plane crash even after the black box of the plane was retrieved and sent to Canada for examination.

He said it was the responsibility of government to release the results for victims to lay claims for compensation. He revealed that insurance has already been paid to the families of some victims while many others were still negotiating.

It should be recalled that the crash that took place in May 2007, took away the lives of 114 people amongst which over 30 were Cameroonians.