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Greek NPO boss on his way to UN assembly saved from Ethiopia crash by being late

Athens – A Greek man said on Sunday he would have been the 150th passenger on the Nairobi-bound Ethiopian Airlines Boeing plane that crashed and killed all on board, except he arrived two minutes late for the flight.

"I was mad because nobody helped me to reach the gate on time," Antonis Mavropoulos said in a Facebook post entitled "My lucky day" in which he includes a photo of his ticket.

Mavropoulos, president of the International Solid Waste Association, a non-profit organisation, was travelling to Nairobi to attend the annual assembly of the UN Environment Programme, according to Athens News Agency.

ALSO READ - UPDATE: Several UN staffers die in Ethiopian Airlines crash

He was supposed to board the plane, but he reached the departure gate just two minutes after it was closed. He booked a later flight but was then prevented from boarding by airport staff.

Only passenger not on board

"They led me to the police station of the airport. The officer told me not to protest but to pray to God because I was the only passenger that didn't board the ET 302 flight that was lost," Mavropoulos said in his post, in which he admits to being in shock.

The airport authorities explained that they wanted to question him because he was the only passenger booked onto the doomed flight who wasn't on board.

"They said they couldn't let me go before cross-checking my identity, the reason I hadn't boarded the plane etc."

ALSO READ: Ethiopian Airlines grounds Boeing 737 MAX 8 fleet after crash

The Nairobi-bound Boeing 737 crashed just minutes after an early-morning take-off on Sunday from Addis Ababa.

People holding passports from more than 30 countries were on board, including a number of UN workers.

State-owned Ethiopian Airlines had taken delivery of the Boeing 737-800 MAX plane on November 15. It was of the same type as a plane that crashed in October after take-off from Jakarta, killing all 189 people on board.

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