An Arik Air flight scheduled to take off at Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos and head to Abuja was disrupted on Saturday evening.
Gatekeepers News reliefs that a video shared by AIT on Sunday, showed passengers waiting outside the aircraft, having been asked to disembark for a thorough security check.
According to the passenger who recorded the incident; a fake passenger was caught and arrested on the flight.
The passenger said, “It took us about 30 minutes for them to do the check-in and the boy that ran into the plane, a fake passenger, has been caught and arrested, and they said he will not get bail until he is properly investigated. So, they asked us to come out and do a proper check-in.”
Director of Public Affairs and Consumer Protection at Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Michael Achimugu who confirmed the incident however said the flight, initially scheduled to take off around 6:52 pm, was delayed due to one of the passenger’s unruly behaviour.
Achimugu noted that the passenger’s parents were invited and he was taken away.
He said, “The flight was supposed to take off at 6.20 pm. It was supposed to be this time of departure. Now, it was not a fake passenger. It was a passenger on board who, due to suspected, use of hard drugs began to behave crazy.”
“The airline staff had to restrain him for a while before deboarding him for the safety of the other passengers. He was taken by AVSEC to Tango City for holding until the flight eventually took off around 6.52pm.”
“There was a 32-minute delay to the flight due to the unruly passenger behaviour.
“His parents were invited to pick him up from there. They came and took him away. The airline departed finally at 18.52 hours with 126 passengers on board.“
The director reiterated that no fake passenger was on board and the situation has been resolved.
