Popular domestic airline, Ibom Air, has confirmed the report of an ‘averted disaster’ on Thursday after a heroic flight engineer intervened just in time to prevent a potentially catastrophic incident involving a fully loaded plane bound for Abuja with faulty landing gear.
A former Director-General of the Bureau of Public Service Reforms, Dr Joe Abah, who was on board the 7 am flight prepared to depart from the Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos State narrated the incident via a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Moments before takeoff, according to Abah, a persistent knocking sound caught the attention of passengers and crew alike. Acting on this unusual occurrence, a flight attendant opened the closed door to find a ground engineer urgently advising against the flight due to detected landing gear issues.
“The knocking got more persistent,” he said, forcing the flight attendant to open the 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.”
Confirming the report in an exclusive chat with AMBusiness, Ibom Air’s spokesperson Mrs Annie Essienette on Thursday, said that the team observed a problem with the nose gear when the aircraft came out of the gate, under the watchful eye of the monitoring engineer.
She 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.
“The engineer, who wore a headset to communicate with the pilots, promptly drew the attention of the Pilot in charge to his observation. The decision was made to inspect the nose, and passengers had to be disembarked. This is a routine practice in the industry. The supervising engineers 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 prioritize the safety of our passengers.”
