The NCAA’s Selective Handling Of Frequent Breaches Of International Aviation Safety Standards

The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has to take the frequent security breaches at our airports and in flight more seriously. So far, it appears the agency has been treating the worsening security breaches selectively and with kid gloves, thereby emboldening more unruly behaviours.

The NCAA is an autonomous aviation regulatory agency empowered by the Civil Aviation Act 2022. The Act not only empowers the Authority to regulate Aviation Safety without political interference but to also carry out oversight functions of Airports, Airspace, Meteorological Services, etc as well as economic regulations of the industry.

Nigeria is a signatory to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), a United Nations (UN) agency that coordinates the principles and techniques of international air navigation, and fosters the planning and development of international air transport to ensure safe and orderly growth. Nigeria being a signatory of ICAO demands as obligation on the NCAA to ensure that any passenger who flouts any of the rules stipulated by the UN agency is dealt with to the full extent of the law.

Recently, popular musician, Wasiu Ayinde Marshal popularly known as “Kwam 1 De Ultimate”, was seen on videos physically standing in front of a Value Jet aircraft, at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, preventing it from taxiing for take off.

Reports indicated that he was asked by the crew to have a container believed to be liquid which he wanted to board the flight with inspected. It is a well known fact that passengers are not allowed to board flights with certain qauntity of water. Rather than obey this instruction and submit to the crew’s request, the musician was said to have poured some of the contents on crew members, physically stood in front of the aircraft and refused every entreaties by the ground staff to move out of the way to enable the aircraft taxi for take off.

Before this incident, there have been similar incidents involving passengers on Air Peace Airline flights both on ground and in the air, which either went unreported or were swept under the carpet after they were reported. There was the case of three passengers who were alleged to have drank three bottles of liquid suspected to be alcohol mid air on a London Gatwick-Lagos Air Peace flight on April 12, 2025. The passengers became intoxicated and threatened to storm the cockpit and force the plane down. Despite repeated appeals from the captain, the three continued to cause chaos, putting the lives of passengers, the crew, and the equipment in clear danger. The pilot was forced to radio security in Lagos and upon landing, the unruly and drunk passengers were left off the hook with no consequences.

Again, we will recall that in recent past a serving senator representing Edo North and former governor of Edo State, Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole, physically stopped Air Peace Airlines staff at the MMA2 Ikeja from carrying out their legitimate duties because he was not allowed to board an aircraft that had departed. The senator came late after the check-in counter had closed, claimed he checked in online, but couldn’t produce a genuine boarding pass to that effect. He jumped on the conveyor belt, physically blocked the entrance to the airport, and prevented passengers from entering the terminal. What happened to him? He went on national television and told lies. A handful of people either close to him or his friends lied on his behalf too. Typical of the way we do things in this country, his conduct was greeted with the outrage that lasts a few days when a ‘big’ man commits an offence no matter how grievous as in this case. The NCAA which treated this matter lightly and the ones before it, many of which were reported but ignored, missed the purport of the situations. The NCAA whose responsibility it is to investigate and punish such infractions seems to have become selective in the process.

In all the cases involving Air Peace Airlines, the matter was known to have received little or no reprimand from the aviation authorities. Many people did not know such incidents occurred much more learn about the punishments meted out to those concerned. Even in a more serious situation like the three passengers who consumed alcohol at 36,000 feet above sea level and threatened to bring down an aircraft inflight, the aviation authorities were not alarmed at the potential danger posed by the incident; that such conduct could have led to fatalities and greater negative image for the nations struggling aviation industry.

However, in the case of Value Jet, the authorities swiftly moved in to punish Kwam 1 and ban him from flying for six months. What about the senator? What about the drunken three passengers on the London Gatwick – Lagos route? What about the several incidents involving Air Peace Airlines? Why were they not equally handled with the swiftness with which that of Value Jet was handled? Why did NCAA apply the extant rules selectively?

Now, let us examine the three incidents mentioned above and place them side-by-side the potential for a grievous harm.

Firstly, the case of the three passengers who became tipsy, after gulping three bottles of alcohol, was more grievous because it had the potential of bringing down an aircraft inflight and causing fatalities. Yet, the authorities were not alarmed. Was it because it happened on an Air Peace Airlines flight?

Secondly, the Senator Oshiomhole case was also treated lightly, and I ask again, was it because it happened to Air Peace Airlines and the culprit is a senator?

Coming back to the Value Jet incident, let us interrogate the circumstances and the facts of it all. The pilots, Captain Oluranti Ogoyi, and the co-pilot, First Officer Ivan Oloba, recklessly endangered the passengers, the equipment, and the crew, as well as the musician. The pilots could have switched off the aircraft engine, delayed the flight until the unruly passenger was escorted out of the path of the aircraft by security personnel before taxiing for take off. But, in a clear case of reckless endangerment and disregard to aviation safety procedures, she taxied and almost hit the ground crew and the musician with the wing of the aircraft. What saved the situation was the fact that this particular aircraft engines were mounted on top of the fuselage. If it was a Boeing 737 aircraft or other aircraft whose engines are mounted below, those passengers would have been sucked in by the engines and dead by now.

If Air Peace pilots had done what the Value Jet pilots did, the entire social media would been inundated with calls to ‘revoke Air Peace AOC and license.’

What the Value Jet pilots did was unacceptable despite the equally unacceptable unruly behaviour of Kwam 1. Like stated above, It was not the first time passengers are disrupting airline operations in the country. They have done it to Air Peace Airlines on numerous occasions while the security looked the other way.

If Kwam 1 had exhibited this reckless behaviour on an Air Peace Airlines, many on social media would have defended him like in the case of the Senator and others. The NCAA could have looked the other way, doing nothing.

Let’s be clear about this. The pilots of Value Jet didn’t exercise the simplest of discretion. The least the captain could have done would be to have waited for the object to be taken away completely from the apron by the security men before starting the aircraft’s engines. This would have definitely delayed the flight but it didn’t have the capacity of causing any harm to the passengers, the crew, and the aircraft.

When compared with the most dangerous scare on Air Peace Airlines flight of April 12, 2025 from London Gatwick Airport to Lagos when three passengers forced themselves into the business class cabin from their economy class cabin during while in flight, after drinking three bottles of alcoholic beverage believed to be Rum, which they bought from a duty free shop, then openly threatening the safety of the flight at 36,000ft above sea level, the Value Jet incident pales in insignificance. The NCAA reacted swiftly.

Since Air Peace Airlines incident occurred, the airline has struggled to get the unruly passengers charged to court. Why didn’t the NCAA ban those three? The passengers’ actions could have led to a very serious situation if not for the mature, professional, and tactical handling of the issue by the Air Peace crew

It is noteworthy that the Value Jet pilots had been suspended pending investigation. It is also noted that Kwam1 has been placed on a ‘no fly list’ for six months. However, let it be noted that the aviation authorities had looked the other way when such incidents occurred in Air Peace Airlines flight even with potential for greater consequences. The manner they were treated raises suspicion of favoritism in situations when firm and decisive actions ought to have been taken regardless of the airline, the passenger, the owner of the airline.

The NCAA is reminded of the implications of the selective judgment it has so far rendered and the manner it has handled these serious aviation safety issues. Let the authorities know that the poor, lethargic, and seemingly partial manner it has handled different security breaches at the airports and on planes in flight has greater implications for the nation’s membership of the world aviation body and could derail approvals of rutine recertification of our aviation industry and its compliance with aviation best practices.

Nigeria is not an “Animal Farm”where in “Animal Kingdom, all animals are equal but some are more equal than others.”