In 2024, a year before his rise to the German chancellorship, opposition leader Friedrich Merz, an experienced pilot, took one of his routine, self-flown trips. He had already made headlines in 2022 for flying to Christian Lindner’s wedding and again in 2024 for a flight in a Eurofighter Typhoon jet.
In July 2024, Merz’s Diamond DA62 aircraft with a tail number D-IAFM touched down at London Ashford Airport. James Okafor, an airfield supervisor who was managing the site that day, walked out to greet the arriving plane.
Okafor recounted that when he approached the aircraft, the cabin was opened and the engines were suddenly started. He stated that the propeller hit his hand before he even realized what was happening, and that he remembered the shock and the pain, and screamed as he fell back. The propeller blades shattered Okafor’s arm. Friedrich Merz and another passenger rushed out to help, applying a tourniquet and calling emergency services. Okafor was taken to a hospital. Later that day, he says a man who accompanied Merz visited him in the hospital.
Okafor said the man told him he would get compensation and that it would be a ‘gentlemen’s agreement.’ He also stated that the man told him directly that the accident should not reach the public. Okafor explained that at that point, he had still hoped everything would be sorted out, but then the doctors informed him that they could not save his hand. He reflected that losing it changed everything. The injuries were too severe, and part of Okafor’s arm was amputated. He now relies on a prosthetic. Despite the assurances he received, Okafor says that no compensation ever followed — and no one has contacted him since.
Today, Friedrich Merz serves as Chancellor of Germany. For James Okafor, the consequences of that June afternoon continue to shape his life.
