Aniekan Essienette, the airline’s group manager for marketing and communications, spoke in an interview with TVC News on Monday.
Festus Keyamo, the minister of aviation, had ordered sanctions
against any Ibom Air staff member found responsible for leaking the footage.
The minister said while filming the incident for use as evidence in court was appropriate, releasing a footage containing indecent exposure to the public is “totally unacceptable”.
Speaking on the matter, Essienette said although the
recording was made onboard one of the airline’s aircraft, there were several
people in the area who were not Ibom Air employees.
“As much as the video was taken on board, we had several
other people that were not Ibom Air employees around the vicinity. So, anyone could
have taken that video,” she said.
“I can tell you categorically that the video was not
released by us. It is rather unfortunate that it has gone viral.
“We do not condone such indecent exposure, so we would not
have been the ones to release it.”
The manager explained that the passenger was forcefully
removed from the aircraft after resisting instructions to disembark.
“She had tried to come out earlier, but she was restrained
because of some activities that had happened behind the scene and eventually,
the pilot in-command had to call security,” Essienette said.
“For us to ensure that security takes her directly off the
plane, our crew had to restrain her for a bit and we saw what resulted after
that happened.”
On the rising cases of disruptive behaviour on flights, she
said no airline would “go about their business with the intention of
humiliating a passenger”.
The Ibom Air official asked the authorities to focus on
preventing similar incidents in future.
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It should be easy to find out. The airline and aviation security should present the mobile phones of all their personnel present there that day. A forensic investigation will fish out the person. If the airline or Aviation security say there's someone else other than them, it presents even a greater security risk and both companies need to be queried
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