Former Director-General of the Bureau of Public Service Reforms, Joe Abah, has taken to X to thank an aircraft engineer who averted a “potential crash” of an aircraft belonging to Ibom Airlines on Thursday, April 25. 

Sharing his experience on the social media platform, Abah revealed that the flight was scheduled to depart Lagos for Abuja. He and other passengers boarded a 7:00 a.m. flight from Lagos to Abuja on Thursday morning, but when the flight was ready to take off, something unusual happened.

He said there was a loud knock on the aircraft door from outside, a development that prompted the flight attendant to open the exit door.

Abah tweeted; 

“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.”