A former Director-General of the Bureau of Public Service Reforms, Dr. Joe Abah, has narrated how an air crash was averted in Lagos on Friday.
Abah, who made this disclosure in a post on his X handle, said he boarded a 7:00 am Ibom Air flight in Lagos, heading to Abuja.
The flight also had the Director of BudgIT, Oluseun Onigbinde onboard, Abah said. “Aircraft door was shut, phones switched off, ready for takeoff.
READ ALSO: FG suspends Dana Air over safety concerns
“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.”
Abah said the pilot made a ‘political’ announcement that they needed to perform some additional checks before take off and apologised for the delay.
He added that the pilot who spoke with the engineer after a few seconds later, announced that the passengers were to disembark.
Abah in his post thanked God that Nigeria has the systems in place to check the problem and avert potential disaster.
READ ALSO: Aviators fault interference as FG grounds Dana Air operations
He also expressed happiness that there are some diligent Nigerians who take their work seriously.
Abah’s experience comes days after an aircraft owned by Dana Air skid off the runway at the Murtala Muhammad International Airport (MMIA), Lagos.
The Nigerian government suspended the airline a day after the incident.
Aviation minister Festus Keyamo directed the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to implement the suspension on Dana Air over safety concerns.
The Nigeria Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB) is investigating the incident involving the airline’s flight 9J0352 (registration number 5N-BKI) carrying 83 passengers and 6 crew members.
