Nigerian Man Dies At Washington Dulles Airport During United Airline Flight Delay.

Majekodunmi Runsewe

A Nigerian, Majekodunmi Runsewe, 69, went into cardiac arrest and later died after his United Airline flight to Lagos flight was delayed for more than three hours at Dulles Airport in the United States.

The tragic event happened on Tuesday June 14, 2011.  Mr. Runsewe, accompanied by his wife, Mrs. Olufunke Runsewe, and his brother, Mr. Oladunjoye Runsewe, were billed to travel to Lagos aboard United Airline flight 990.  According to family sources, the three travellers checked in for their flight at about 7:30 p.m. and boarded shortly thereafter.  The flight, which is routed through Accra on its way to Lagos, was scheduled to depart at 10:44 p.m.  For some reason, however, the aircraft did not begin to taxi until well after midnight.

According to other eyewitnesses, the passengers were relieved when the aircraft finally taxied unto the tarmac after about one and half hours’ delay at the gate, but soon after the aircraft reached the tarmac, it was announced that it had developed an engine problem.  While the passengers expected to be returned to the gate, they were left right there on the tarmac for more than two hours before being allowed to disembark.

In the meantime, Majekodunmi became seriously ill and requested urgent assistance.  The airline attendants could not locate a functioning wheel chair to evacuate the sick passenger who had become distressed and unable to stand on his own.  After two attempts, the airline attendants found a functioning wheel chair and the sick passenger was wheeled back into the waiting area.  While waiting to be picked up to return home, he suffered a cardiac arrest and was rushed to a nearby hospital where Mr  Runsewe died.


Naija News Desk learnt that the passengers were not fed during the long delay.  Some of the passengers felt that the shabby treatment by United Airlines was due to the fact that the passengers were mostly Africans travelling to Ghana and Nigeria. “Were this to be a Europe-bound flight, such could not have happened,” said one of the passengers. European and American airlines typically put old and poorly maintained aircrafts on African routes.

The family of the deceased is making arrangements for his body to be returned to Nigeria for burial shortly. 

Naija News Desk contacted officials of United Airline in Chicago by both email and telephone to request their side of the story. A press unit official, Marlene Mattio, told us she would find out what happened, but never returned our call. About the close of business on June 21st, a United airline official called asking us to provide further information to enable him to respond. Twenty-four hours later, he too, had not been heard from.

 United Airlines only joined the growing African market recently, making daily flights from Washington Dulles Airport to Accra and Lagos, but it has already started to log a pattern of troubled flights and perhaps faulty and uncomfortable aircraft on the route.

On June 1, for instance, UA-990 was escorted back to Washington by a US fighter jet after having been over the Atlantic for about 50 minutes on its way to Accra.  The official reason was that there had been an incident between two passengers.  Apparently, when one passenger reclined his seat, it was smack into the passenger behind him, who protested.  If true, that would suggest that the UA aircraft configuration, particularly for an intercontinental flight, is not customer-friendly.