A former Director-General of the Bureau of Public Service Reforms, Joe Abah, has narrated how the proactiveness of an aircraft engineer averted a “potential disaster” in an aircraft belonging to Ibom Airlines Thursday.
Mr Abah narrated his experience in a series of tweets posted on his X handle (formerly Twitter) on Thursday.
The flight was scheduled to depart Lagos for Abuja.
Mr Abah noted that he boarded a 7:00 a.m. flight from Lagos to Abuja on Thursday morning and the flight was ready to take off when something unusual happened.
“I boarded a 7 am @ibomairlines flight in Lagos this morning, heading to Abuja. My brother @seunonigbinde was on the same flight and we had chatted briefly about work. The aircraft door was shut, phones switched off, and ready for takeoff,” a part of his tweets read.
He explained that as the aircraft was about to begin taxiing, there was a loud knock on the aircraft door from outside, a development that prompted the flight attendant to open the exit door.
“As she did, a ground engineer came in and those of us in front clearly heard him say ‘You can’t go. Your landing gear is bad,” Mr Abah wrote.
“The pilot made a ‘political’ announcement that they needed to perform some additional checks before take-off and apologised for the delay. He spoke with the engineer and, a few seconds later, announced that we were to disembark.
“I thank God that we have the systems in place to check this and avert potential disaster. And that we have some diligent Nigerians who take their work seriously. If you are that young Nigerian engineer, God will bless you abundantly.”
Mr Abah asked the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to help identify the engineer for him to personally appreciate his intervention.
Findings
In interviews with multiple sources at the Lagos airports, PREMIUM TIMES confirmed from airport officials familiar with the incident that the incident occurred.
The officials, who chose not to be identified because they are not allowed to speak to the media, explained that the aircraft developed a landing gear fault, and it was noticed before it took off.
“It’s the towbar they used in pushing back the Aircraft that affected it. But they had finished boarding and the aircraft was pushing back when they noticed the stuff. What they noticed I don’t really know. Something about hydraulic stuff,” one of the officials said.
Ibom Air speaks
When contacted on Thursday, Annie Essienette, Communications Manager at Ibom Air, also confirmed the development.
In a statement shared with this medium, the airline management said: “This morning, on our 7 am flight from Lagos to Abuja, while the aircraft was pushing back from the gate, under the supervision of the monitoring engineer, he noticed an issue with the nose gear.”
According to the statement, the engineer, who wore a headset to communicate with the pilots, promptly drew the attention of the pilot in charge to his observation.
The airline said the decision was made to inspect the nose, and passengers had to be disembarked.
The airline described this as a routine practice in the industry, and that supervising engineers often remain vigilant in inspecting an aircraft until it departs.
“While the aircraft has since been taken to the hangar to have the problem fixed, we regret the delay in delivering our usual service to our valued passengers. We will always take precautions and prioritise the safety of our passengers,” the statement said.
The development is coming less than 24 hours after the NCAA suspended Dana airline operating licence over safety violations, after the airline’s aircraft experienced a runway incursion on Tuesday.
The increasing cases of safety violations amongst domestic airlines operating in the country continue to raise concerns amid calls on concerned authorities to intensify their regulatory efforts.
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