By our reporter
A female passenger, Ms Comfort Emmanson, involved in an unruly incident on an Ibom Air flight from Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital, to Lagos, has been handed a lifetime ban from traveling on any plane owned by the airline.
Ibom Air said today that the passenger, who arrived Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, in an Ibom Air flight, proceeded to allegedly assault a flight attendant and clashed with security operatives at the airport.
Several videos of the clash, which occurred on Sunday, are still trending on the internet,as of press time.
In one of the videos, words such as “drag her out,” could be heard, as the passenger in a torn sky-blue top shirt was seen being dragged out of the aircraft by the airline’s officials.
“She is hitting me,” a female flight attendant is seen and heard saying in another video.
“What did you do?” the passenger said in the video, before hitting the flight attendant again.
“Video me, I came with a wig,” the passenger said in the video, referring to artificial hair worn by women.
The flight attendant was seen blocking the exit door of the aircraft, preventing the passenger from exiting.
“She was giving her slaps left and right,” another flight attendant was seen/heard explaining the incident to the airline officials and airport security.
Spokesperson of aviation regulator, Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Michael Achimugu, who reacted, blamed the incident on the passenger’s refusal to comply with the crew’s instructions.
“When cabin crew ask you to turn off your phone before takeoff or landing, simply comply. I can’t understand why simple routine issues would lead to incidents like this,” Mr Achimugu wrote in a response to the incident on a tweet on X yesterday.
“Passengers need to understand they have responsibilities, not just rights. More details will be addressed tomorrow,” he added, urging passengers to take instructions from cabin crew seriously, particularly routine safety procedures such as switching off mobile devices during takeoff and landing.
Ibom Air, in its statement, pointed fingers on an “unruly passenger,” explaining that her conduct posed a serious security threat to the safety of the crew, passengers, and the aircraft.
In the statement, which ran on its Facebook page, the airline named the passenger as Comfort Emmanson.
According to the airline, just before take-off from Uyo, Ms Emmanson was instructed in line with standard aviation safety procedures to switch off her mobile phone.
It claimed that she bluntly refused to comply until the Pilot-in-Command made an announcement, after which a fellow passenger seated beside her took the phone and switched it off.
The action prompted a verbal tirade from Ms Emmanson with the situation eventually defused and the flight departed as scheduled, Ibom Air explained further.
Touching down in Lagos, Ibom Air further claimed, Ms Emmanson waited for all other passengers to disembark and then proceeded to confront the Purser, who had earlier instructed her.
She reportedly walked up to the unsuspecting Purser, stepped on her, forcibly tore off her wig, removed her glasses, and threw it to the floor, and used her footwear to assault her.
“She slapped her several times, and when the other cabin crew member tried to intervene, she slapped her too. She then attempted to forcibly remove a fire extinguisher to use as a weapon, an act that could have damaged and grounded the aircraft,” the airline said.
