BREAKING NEWS: Impending Air Disaster Involving “IBOM Airlines” Averted By Engineers On Duty.

Ibom Aircraft.

An account by Dr. Joe Abah, a former Director General of the Bureau of Public Service Reforms, an Ibom Air flight headed for Abuja from Lagos developed fault while taxing and was stopped from flying.

The twitter post made by Dr. Abah was full of appreciation for the young Engineers on duty who stopped what would have been a tragic journey for passengers onboard the aircraft.

Dr. Joe Abah.

His post reads, “I boarded a 7am @ibomairlines flight in Lagos this morning, heading to Abuja. My brother @seunonigbinde was on the same flight and we had chatted briefly about work. Aircraft door was shut, phones switched off, ready for takeoff. As we were about to start taxiing, there was a loud knock on the aircraft door from outside. We all wondered what it could be. The knocking got more persistent. The flight attendant had to open the door again. 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.” The pilot made a ‘political’ announcement that they need 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. Dear @NigeriaCAA, please find that young engineer for me. I want to thank him personally. Cc. @fkeyamo

Dr. Joe Abah, DAI's Country Director for Niergia, is an internationally recognized expert in governance and institutional reforms, political economy analysis, and change management. Between 2013 and 2017, he was the Director-General of the Bureau of Public Service Reforms in the Nigerian Presidency.

Dr. Joe Abah later gave further information about the flight stating that he now knows why flights are delayed in Nigeria as given the fault with his 7am Lagos to Abuja plane, another plan has come from Uyo to take them to Abuja. Ibom Air announced a 2 hour delay “for operational reasons” for people going from Lagos to Uyo at 9am. They used the plane that should have gone to Uyo to take them to Abuja and they’ll come back to take them to Uyo after taking us to Abuja.

He also asked that instead of the opaque term “for operational reasons”, why don’t airlines just explain what happened and what caused the delay, because according to him, reasonable people will understand.