An Air Peace flight attendant has rejected Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau’s (NSIB) allegation of drug intake.
Gatekeepers News reports that this comes after Air Peace denied the NSIB’s claims, maintaining that the bureau has yet to share its findings from the Port Harcourt runway incident.
The flight attendant said it is a smear campaign and gave the agency 72 hours to withdraw the allegation or face legal action.
NSIB had alleged on September 11 that the pilot and co-pilot of an Air Peace aircraft, which experienced a runway excursion in Port Harcourt on July 13, tested positive for alcohol, while a cabin crew member allegedly tested positive for THC, the active compound in cannabis.
Speaking on Arise News Night on Friday, Victory Maduneme, an Air Peace cabin crew member, said NSIB investigators collected her blood and urine samples after the incident but only released the test results 10 days later.
Maduneme explained that she was stunned to see the results when she went to Lagos to collect a letter from NCAA.
She said, “When I went to meet the doctor, he saw me and asked about marijuana — (It) usually stays in the system for 90 days – that if I have something like this. He’s advising me to go back and come later when I feel like everything has cleared from my system.”
“I said no, if I go now and come back later, it proves I have the drugs in my system, I insisted that I want to do the test, which was done to me, and everything came out negative.”
The flight attendant questioned why NSIB did not notify her airline if drugs had truly been detected.
She said, “Because then I am a risk to passengers on board, and my license would have been taken away from me, but no, they didn’t inform them of this until after two months. Now, it’s just coming out, and they’re spoiling the image of the airline.”
“I sent a copy of my result to you; everything was clear. If marijuana was supposed to stay in the system for 90 days, I did my test in a month, and nothing was found in my system.”
Maduneme added that the allegation was damaging to her career. She said, “If not for the kindness of my chairman, they would have sacked and blacklisted me. Once that is done, no airline in the world will work with me because they’ve painted me as someone with drugs in her system.”
“This is really very bad. In the next 72 hours, if NSIB does not retract what they’ve said against me, I think we should sue. This is pure defamation of character.”
David Bernard, the flight’s co-pilot, also rejected the NSIB’s findings, arguing that alcohol tests should have been conducted with a breathalyser instead of blood and urine samples.
He said, “When you blow in your breath into the breathalyser, it checks the amount of alcohol in your system.”
“But these guys at the Port Harcourt airport took our blood samples and urine on the 13th, and came back on the 23rd of July for the result.”
“I mean, how long does it take for a result to be out. A blood test doesn’t even make no sense, we’re in 2025.”
Bernard added that the process was unfair and damaging to aviation professionals. He said, “After paying a lot of money for flying school, it is unfair to damage someone’s reputation by accusing them without evidence, especially when tests are sent to hospitals not recognised by aviation authorities.”
