NEWS In Sierra Leone......Bellview Airlines Abandon Passengers At Lungi International Airport Posted by on Nov 4, 2009, 19:17

Bellview Airlines....Always involved in Controversies

The unprecedented cancellation of flights by Bellview Airlines is causing considerable discomfort to passengers for the past couple of months. On 5 October 2009, at about 0130 Bellview Airlines with inscription Boeing 737 with Registration marks 5N-BFM, landed at the Freetown International Airport, Sierra Leone with 63 souls on board and 35 of them being transit passengers from Dakar.

The passengers who were been stranded in Freetown for the past four days angrily informed the Aviation Security Officers on duty in that they had been in transit for the past four days, which was from Thursday 1-5 October 2009 as a result of the inability of the airline management to take them to their various destinations.

The staff of Bellview Airlines reportedly displayed gross unprofessionalism by informing the passengers that they had no money to purchase jet aeronautical fuel for the aircraft. This statement angered the passengers who threatened to burn the aircraft and damage the airport. But through the intervention of Mr. Lawrence B Conteh, Mr. Alhassan Kallon and some officials at the Office of National Security, the passengers were pacified and while the officials contributed some money to provide drinking water for the passengers as most of them had run out of physical cash.

Bellview staff, who were presumed penniless tried to raise money to purchase fuel but were unsuccessful.  Seeing the desperate situation a passenger called Mr. PRINCE STANLEY OGBU, a Nigerian by birth with passport number A365650A, consented to loan Bellview Management the sum of Three Thousand Euro (3,000) paid in 50 denomination notes for the purchase of the jet aeronautical fuel. At about 08:30am, agreement was reportedly reached and document signed for the refund of the money at the presence of a senior Aviation Security  Mr. Lawrence B. Conteh between the Belview management and Mr. PRINCE STANLEY OGBU. A further undertaking was also made between Belleview management and the Sierra Leone Airport Authority for the payment of landing and handling dues.

It should be noted that, this whole episode created a very ugly image of the country as foreign nationals traveling out of the country stood by and watched the ugly situation between passengers and the Aircraft and between the Sierra Leone Airport Authority (SLPA) and Belleview Airline. This is not the first time that Belleview Airline has suffered from poor and inadequate administrative arrangement and poor engineering maintenance.

Investigations by this medium show that Belleview Airline is a death trap in the sub-region of this part of the world. About two years back, the same Airline perished the lives of more than one hundred passengers in Nigeria in a rickety craft, which is almost the same used to shuttle the West Coast. Explaining the dreadful situation to this reporter, a seasoned Aeronautic employee at the Sierra Leone Airport Authority described the craft as a typical example of a flying coffin occupying the air space of several countries undetected.

Up to press time debt owed to the Sierra Leone Airport Authority has not been paid. It is not known whether the money loan to Belleview by the Good Samaritan passenger to avert a possible crash if it was allowed to airborne has been refunded as the company is notorious in refusing to honour legitimate financial obligation. In London, the international route of Belleview has many questions to respond to from Aviation Officials about the craft’s air worthiness.

Standard Times reliably learnt that the company is operating one flight with questionable air worthiness character, which expired on 31st October 2009.Some officials of the Belleview this medium attempted to talk to about the issue of the flight, money obtained from the passenger to purchase jet fuel and other safety measures have refused to respond claiming corporate secrecy.