Mr. John Agyekum Kufuor has recounted a terrifying experience during his tenure as president, revealing how he narrowly escaped a plane crash over the Sahara Desert.
Chronicling the incident in 2007 at Libya during a presidential trip, the former president shared the ordeal, which unfolded while he was travelling from Libya to Sudan on an official assignment.
“I remember that sometime in 2007, had it not be God’s intervention, I would have been involved in a plane crash over the Sahara Desert. We were coming from Libya and heading to Sudan. I was with a group of about twelve to sixteen people onboard the plane. The aircraft had taken off from Tripoli after picking me up from Accra, Ghana.
“I had a fruitful engagement with him [Mohammed Gaddafi] and left. While en route to Khartoum-Sudan’s capital with my entourage, all of a sudden, over the desert, the plane could not ascend. It had become heavy, and for almost 30 minutes, it refused to gain altitude. When you looked down, all you could see was the desert. Eeeii, what was about to happen to us here? the former President rhetoric, recalling the faithful day on Angel TV.
Mr. Kufuor stressed that in the wake of the unsettling momement, neither the pilot nor the any official on board the plane communicated to them what was happening.
“Then we realized that the hostesses had gone to the luggage area and started dragging the bags toward where we were seated. The pilot remained silent, not communicating anything to us,” he disclosed to Saddick Adams on the Angel Morning Show, Thursday, August 7, 2025.
The tense moment mid-air, burdened and struggling to gain altitude, J.A Kufuor, continued that the pilot was forced to divert its course toward the Mediterranean Sea and eventually made a difficult return to Tripoli.
“In that situation, the plane managed to maneuver and made a turn to align over the Mediterranean Sea, although it was still struggling to fly at a higher altitude for nearly an hour before we finally landed in Tripoli, Libya’s capital. As we were landing, we noticed fire tenders and security vehicles speeding across the airport tarmac. That was when the pilot confirmed that the plane couldn’t fly any higher, so he had to return to Tripoli.”
He admitted encountering such a horrible narrative and highlighting the level of risk involved in diplomatic travels.
“When we finally alighted from the plane, security personnel at the airport rushed to surround the aircraft with fire tenders, thinking there could be a possible fire to contain. So, I have witnessed something like this before.
“The plane couldn’t fly again, so we had to spend the night in Tripoli. The next day, a new aircraft was brought to transport us to Sudan, a journey that lasted close to three hours,” he said further.
