Antonis Mavropoulos, a Greek passenger, has described narrowly missing the Ethiopian Flight 302 plane crash, and he explains how he argued with the airline workers who wouldn’t let him on board the fatal trip.
Now, in an eloquent and emotional Facebook post, which has been shared thousands of times, Mavropoulos explained, in Greek: “I’m posting it because I want to tell everyone that the invisible and, nēmatídia of fortune, the out-of-plan circumstances knit the web in which our life is taken. It’s millions of small threads we almost never feel – but one to break is enough to feed the whole web instantly.”
Mavropoulous, who runs a recycling company in Athens, titled the Facebook post: “March 10, 2019 – my lucky day.” He concluded it, “Maybe not too old to rock n roll – but certainly too young to die…”
Here’s what you need to know:
Several Small Things Added Up to Antonis Mavropoulos Missing the Doomed Flight
In eloquent language, Mavropoulos recounted the frantic moments in which he tried to make – and barely missed Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302. First of all, he was running from a connecting flight and barely had enough time to make it. In fact, when he arrived at the gate, he saw the last doomed passenger going through the tunnel into the aircraft.
“Running to catch flight et 302 Addis Ababa – Nairobi, which crashed 6 minutes after taking off, I had my nerves because there was no one to help me go fast. I lost it for two minutes, when I arrived, the boarding was closed and I watched the last passengers in tunnel go in – I screamed to put me in but they didn’t allow it,” he wrote.
He further explained that he probably would have gotten on the plane anyway, but he didn’t have his suitcase. In fact, he claimed the “flight lost it,” and says he learned later that he lost the suitcase from a connecting flight “because I came out first and very quickly from the plane and the connection ambassador who came to receive me didn’t find me.”
Antonis Mavropoulos Says He Was Placed on Another Flight But Wasn’t Allowed to Board It
What happened next is also amazing.
“Airport people, kind, promoted me to the next flight that would leave at 11:20, they apologized for the inconvenience and transferred me to a nice lounge for the waiting,” he wrote.
“On 10:50, as we joined the next flight, two security officers informed me that for security reasons that a senior officer will explain to me, they will not allow my boarding. In my intense protests they left no margin of discussion and led me to their superior, to the airport police department.”
And then this:
“He told me gently not to protest and say thank you to God, because I am the only passenger who did not enter the flight et 302 which is missing. And that this was why they can’t let me go, until (they) determine who I am, because I didn’t get on the flight and everything. At first I thought he was lying, but his style left no margin of doubt.”
He was shocked, for obvious reasons. “I felt the ground lost under my feet, but I came back in 1-2 seconds because I thought something else would happen, some communication problem maybe. People were kind…They made me sit in a living room and they told me to wait there…”
While waiting, he scoured the Internet, and he discovered from friends at the Nairobi airport that his original flight had not arrived. At that time, he learned from a close friend that the flight had crashed and the Greek media were reporting on the tragedy.
“Then I realized that I must immediately contact my own people and tell them that I was not in and that for two small random circumstances I (didn’t make) the flight – the moment I made that thought, I collapsed because then exactly I realized how lucky I stood.”
He concluded: “I’m so glad I wrote a post and I’m grateful to live and that I have so many friends that made me feel their love – kisses to all and a warm thank you for your touching support…a big sorry to my family for the shock.”