Aeroplane thriller flies close to Nigeria's reality

It is perhaps an unlikely theme for a blockbuster film in a country with a dire air safety record: a near miss in which a pilot steers a smoke-filled aeroplane to safety. In Nigeria, Last Flight to Abuja has become the first home-grown production to outsell Hollywood films this year. Crowds have been packing ­cinemas to see how the Nollywood fiction matches the reality of taking an internal flight in West Africa's most populous country. The film took a record-breaking eight million naira ($50 400) in its first week of release in Lagos. It has toppled this year's box-office hits The Amazing Spider-Man and Ice Age: Continental Drift and has grossed  the ­second-highest income in West Africa after The Dark Knight Rises. "Each time I fly in Nigeria, it's a nervy experience. All the shaking, the bumpy landings, the unexplained noises as the aeroplane starts

off five hours after you're supposed to have arrived at your destination," said the director, Obi Emelonye. "The film was an accumulation of all those ­stories." The timing of the film's release coincided with a Dana Air aeroplane smashing into a Lagos slum, killing 163 people. Relatives of the dead encouraged the director not to ­cancel the film's opening so as to keep aviation safety in the spotlight. "The timing was spooky because it was supposed to be an era [that was] behind us. I felt I had a social responsibility to show [improvements] we could make with just a little change of attitude – being proactive," Eme-lonye said. continued