Former Nottingham Forest star 'could have died' during Africa Cup of Nations flight

Former Forest player Saidy Janko was involved in a terrifying incident on a flight to the Africa Cup of Nations

Saidy Janko and his Gambia team-mates “could have died” during a flight to the Africa Cup of Nations that was aborted, coach Tom Saintfiet has claimed.

The former Nottingham Forest defender made 17 appearances for the Reds during a loan spell from Porto during the 2018/19 campaign. Forest ended that season ninth under Sabri Lamouchi.

Janko is currently playing his football in Switzerland at Young Boys, having joined them from Spanish side Real Valladolid last summer. The 28-year-old will be representing Gambia during January’s AFCON tournament in the Ivory Coast.

But the right-back was involved in a flight to the tournament which was forced to turn around just minutes after leaving the Gambian capital Banjul on Wednesday. Video footage posted on Instagram by Janko showed players sweating heavily as they left the plane.

“As soon as we entered the small plane hired to fly us, we noticed the immense heat that left us dripping in sweat,” he said. “It was assured to us by the crew that the air condition[ing] would start once in the sky.

“The inhumane heat mixed with the occurring lack of oxygen left many people with strong headaches and extreme dizziness. Furthermore, people started falling deeply asleep minutes after take-off. Knowing what could have happened, if we would have been exposed to the situation for any longer – in an airplane, running out of oxygen.

Gambia manager Saintfiet claims “the whole team would have died” if they had remained on the plane for another 30 minutes. He told BBC Sport Africa: “The local crew said there was a problem with the air conditioning before we took off but that it would be all fine when we took off.

“After a few minutes, it was very hot in the plane. We all fell asleep because there was a lack of oxygen – some of the players couldn’t be woken up. The pilot noticed and we had to return.

“People got headaches and if the flight had gone on for another 30 minutes, the whole team would have died. The strange thing is that the oxygen masks didn’t come out – it’s good that the pilot realised that this was a deadly situation and so turned back. But we are still in shock.”

Gambia Football Federation (GFF) president Lamin Kaba Bajo has said there was no evidence to support Saintfiet’s suggestion of potential carbon monoxide poisoning on board.

“I never felt it and it’s not clinically, scientifically or medically proven,” Kaba Bajo told the BBC. Those are individual observations and perceptions, but there was not anything like that. I was almost sitting next to the coach and I didn’t see anyone collapse.

“I know that people, when a plane takes off, they sleep. Some people were dozing, sleeping, but we landed safely. There was not a single incident, we all came down and boarded the bus to go back to the terminal.”

Rate Janko during his time with the Reds here