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In what could be described as total absurdity, two passengers threw decorum to the wind and exchanged blows as a Lagos-bound Chanchangi aircraft was taxing to take-off from the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.
In what could be described as total absurdity, two passengers threw decorum to the wind and exchanged blows as a Lagos-bound Chanchangi aircraft was taxing to take-off from the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.
The incident, which shook occupants of the aircraft to their marrows occured on Tuesday afternoon at the Abuja airport runway.
Daily Sun learnt that trouble started when the cabin crew and the pilot announced as the aircraft was on the verge of taxiing that all mobile phones be switched off as it is the standard practice globally. Rather than obey, a passenger was said to be engrossed in a phone call, totally ignoring the safety instructions from the cockpit.
As he spoke wildly over the phone, a cabin crew member beckoned on him to switch off as the electromagnetic emissions from the phone interferes with aircraft navigational signals. Yet, he ignored the instruction a second time.
Rather, what he did was to throw abusive words at the crew.
At this time, another passenger sitting close to him was said to have been miffed by the development and ordered the errant caller to shut up. The caller was said to have faced his fellow passenger and rained curses on him.
Within seconds, the verbal warnings snowballed into fisticuffs as both passengers threw heavy punches at each other. At this time, the aircraft was said to have approached the holding point from where the pilot ordered that they disembark the aircraft.
Expectedly, the pilots called for the immediate arrest of the duo who became unwilling guests of policemen stationed at the airport. Media officer of the Chanchangi Airlines, Adamu Ibrahim who confirmed the story on phone expressed happiness that the fighting men were handed over to relevant authorities.
'It actually happened just when they were taxing, the noise from the passengers were too much she insulted the crew member, the pilot had to stop and they left the aircraft for safety of the flight.The flight later left Abuja without them", he said. Also commenting on the development, the Director General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Dr. Harold Demuren described the situation as unrully, pointing out that if such incidents were not strongly handled they could lead to forceful openining of the exit doors thereby casing a big disaster.
'It is very dangerous, it could interfere with safety. It is an unrully behaviour and this is one of the distruption of services we have been saying in aviation. It could lead to forceful openining of the exit doors and that could amount to a big disaster," he said.