This report from All Africa.com
The Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB) launched an investigation into the ‘runway incursion’ at Port Harcourt International Airport on 13 July 2025 after an Air Peace Boeing 737 passenger aircraft made a somewhat offbeat landing.
The NSIB has released its report which found the pilot and co-pilot had failed toxicology tests and were positive for cannabis, known locally as Indian hemp, and alcohol.
The NSIB said in a a statement: “The aircraft, operating as a scheduled domestic flight from Lagos to Port Harcourt with 103 persons on board, landed long on Runway 21 after an unstabilised final approach. The aircraft touched down 2,264 metres from the runway threshold and came to a final stop 209 metres into the clearway. This was well beyond the recommended touchdown zone. All passengers and crew disembarked safely, and no injuries were reported.”
Following the findings, the agency recommended that Air Peace strengthen its crew resource management training and tighten checks on pilot fitness before dispatch.
Air Peace, Nigeria’s largest airline, operates domestic and international flights across Africa and to destinations such as London, Saudi Arabia, Dakar, Freetown, Monrovia and Ghana.
The company has yet to comment on the bureau’s report.
The incident provoked widespread comment in the Nigerian media, with This Day columnist Mahmud Jaga writing in his back page column:
One of the cabin crew members on the Air Peace flight was even said to have tested positive for cannabis. That could not have been due to poor pay. Airline pilots are some of the best paid of all workers. They earn much more than doctors, engineers and all civil servants.
Marijuana is cheaper than beer, but it is also more potent, because just one moli [as old timers used to call it] can throw the smoker into a trance. Who else but a cabin crew member high on cannabis will drag a passenger half naked through a tight aircraft door? Who else but a tipsy pilot will start taxiing with a plane and attempt to crush a passenger who is [innocently] standing on the runway?
In addition to a juicy salary, pilots spend so much time in the air. Being airborne is stressful because they must listen to the endless chatter of air traffic controllers, look out for bird strikes on their aircraft engines, look out for other planes to avoid collisions, look out for columbus clouds, rain, gusts of wind, even typhoons and hurricanes. When a pilot finally makes it to the ground, what do you expect him to do to celebrate his arrival?
I am just wondering; why did NSIB wait until a plane overshot the runway before it took blood samples of pilots and crewmen to test for alcohol and banned substances? Is that not a case of crying after spilled milk? What if the plane had landed in a Port Harcourt creek, or if it had confused the 30 kms completed [but recently washed away] section of the Lagos-Calabar coastal road for the runway? You see, from the air, the very wide coastal road could look like a runway to a tipsy pilot.
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