The investigation team of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has met with the two principal actors in the fracas on the 10 August Ibom Air flight from Uyo to Lagos.
As part efforts to probe and prevent future recurrence, the team engaged with Ibom Air hostess Julie Edwards and other crew members on that flight on Wednesday, while the passenger, Ms. Comfort Emmanson came along with her counsel the next day.
On Thursday, NCAA’s Director of Public Affairs and Consumer Protection, Mr. Michael Achimugu wrote on his verified X handle @mikeachimugu01: ‘Ibom Air Investigation: Yesterday in Abuja, the NCAA team met with Julie Edwards and other members of the crew involved in the Comfort Emanson incident as part of investigations into that event.
‘The NCAA’s directorates of Aviation Security, Operations, Licensing, and Training Standards, Legal, and Consumer Protection are collaborating to ensure a proper conclusion to this investigation.
‘Later today, Comfort Emmanson, the passenger, would be meeting with the Authority. She is being accompanied by her lawyer’.
In a separate post, Achimugu confirmed that NCAA’s meeting with Emmanson: ‘NCAA has held a meeting with Comfort Emanson, the Ibom Air passenger’.
Speaking with The Nation on the development, Achimugu said: ‘We held separate meetings with both parties in Abuja and Lagos between yesterday (Wednesday) and today (Thursday) to understand what transpired to prevent future occurrences. They were asked questions and from what they told us, we still have some loose ends to tie.
‘The parties spoke from their perspectives and we have more work to do based on the information available to us. The investigation is ongoing because we want to understand what happened to avoid a repeat of such incident in the aviation sector and Nigeria as a whole’.
