Kechi Okwuchi, a survivor of the December 10, 2015 Sosoliso Airlines Flight 1145 plane crash, has qualified for the second round of audition for America’s Got Talent after earning four yes from judges.
The 27-year-old, who was one of two survivors of the crash that killed 107 people, got a standing ovation from judges and brought a global audience to tears with a rendition of Ed Sheeran’s ‘Thinking Out Loud’.
That performance, preceded by her account of her harrowing story, has won her a slot in the next round of the talent reality show.
News of her qualification was broken on the show’s audition page on Tuesday.
An excited Kechi thanked the judges and God for the feat.
The AGT contestant was a 16 when the Sosoliso aircraft which departed from the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja crash-landed at the Port Harcourt International Airport.
Among the dead were 60 secondary school students from Kachi’s Loyola Jesuit College in Abuja and popular televangelist, Bimbo Odukoya.
Kechi was treated in Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa as of 14 December 2005 and at Shriners Hospitals for Children in Galveston, Texas, United States as of 6 September 2007.
She has undergone more than 100 surgeries.
In 2015, she graduated from the University of St. Thomas with a degree in economics and gave a speech during her commencement ceremony.
“Lying in the hospital bed, bandaged head to foot, not being able to move or do anything else, music was my escape. That’s why it means so much to me,” she Okwuchi told the AGT TV crowd.
She said she has been singing since she was a child in and credits it with helping her pull through tragedy.
