Air Peace's all female crew prevent the abduction of a baby on Port Harcourt to Lagos flight

AIR Peace's all female air crew successfully averted the trafficking of a three day old boy in Port Harcourt over the weekend after noticing that a woman boarded their flight with a bay and was handling him awkwardly prompting them to call the police.

One of Nigeria's fastest-growing domestic airlines, Air Peace has an all-female crew on some of its flights and thanks to this, the maternal instincts of the staff on the Port Harcourt to Lagos flight helped foil a kidnapping. They succeeded in stopping a middle-aged woman and her collaborators to smuggling the baby to Lagos.

Air Peace's crew made up of Captain Sinmisola Ajibola, Senior First Officer Onohi Agboighale, Mojoko Ewane, Taiye Abbey, Victoria Ukpiaifo and Ngozi Ezeamaka came to rescue on board flight P4 7393 on Sunday. During boarding, the lead crew of the flight, Mojoko Ewane, observed the suspect was handling the baby in an awkward manner and decided to question her.

When she was questioned the lady at the boarding door of the aircraft, the suspect claimed the baby was three days old. She, however, later told her interrogators that the baby was born on January 5, a day before her aborted trip, adding that she gave birth shortly after travelling from Lagos to Port Harcourt on an Air Peace flight on January 5.

A call was later placed to the contact numbers the suspect said belonged to her husband and the doctor who handled the birth of the child. While the alleged husband claimed that his wife was actually pregnant, the alleged doctor’s number rang unanswered.

When the suspect was asked to breastfeed the baby, she could not as there was no breast milk. Then the lady tried to create a scene, rallying other passengers on the flight to prevail on the Air Peace crew to allow her fly but the staff stood their ground.

When the crew informed the suspect the carrier’s standard operating procedure barred them from allowing passengers fly with a week-old baby on grounds of health, she claimed to be a nurse and insisted the baby’s health would not be jeopardised. At this stage, the airline invited personnel of the Department of State Services (DSS) at the Port Harcourt Airport to take over the case for further investigation.

Air Peace spokesman Chris Iwarah, said the airline was proud its crew professionally discharged their responsibility to ensure passenger safety and assist the government in fighting crime. One DSS source in Port Harcourt also confirmed the suspect had been transferred to the zonal office of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State for further questioning.

According to the DSS, the suspect confessed a lady gave her the baby. In June 2018, Air Peace staff also exposed a suspected trafficker of a three-month-old baby on its Lagos-Banjul flight.