Air Peace co-pilot and cabin crew member implicated in a recent Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB) report have strongly denied its findings, which claimed they tested positive for alcohol and cannabis.
The NSIB’s preliminary report into a runway incursion in Port Harcourt on July 13th stated toxicological tests indicated the presence of alcohol in the flight crew and Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), found in cannabis, in a cabin crew member.
The indicted staff, co-pilot David Bernard and cabin crew member Maduneme Victory, appeared on television to outright reject these allegations, accusing the NSIB of conducting questionable tests at an unregistered centre in a bid to smear the airline’s reputation.
Co-pilot David Bernard insisted, “I don’t drink and secondly, we are in 2025, if you are trying to do an alcohol and blood test, we have something called the breathalyser, where you have to do your test right there. You blow your breathe into the breathalyser. It checks the amount of alcohol in your system. But these guys at the Port Harcourt Airport took our blood samples and urine on the 13th and then, they are coming back on the 23rd of July with the result. I mean, how long does it take for a result to be out?”
He emphasised the strict protocols followed by airline staff, noting, “So, you don’t just take anything because you can randomly be checked when reporting for duty. And you are not supposed to have 0.02 grams of alcohol in your blood and you are not supposed to take alcohol eight hours before reporting on duty or on standby.”
Cabin crew member Maduneme Victory described her shock at receiving the results a significant time after the tests were taken, calling the development a character assassination. She said, “I went to the NCAA in Lagos, I opened the letter and I was in utter shock to see what was in my result.” She immediately sought a confirmatory test at an aviation-licensed clinic, which she says came back negative.
“The test was done and everything came out negative. The question I need to ask NSIB is, if marijuana was found in my system, were they not supposed to say this to my airline, and were they not supposed to stop me from flying? Why? Because I am a risk to the passengers on board and my license would have been taken away from me. But they didn’t inform them of this till after two months,” Victory stated. She threatened legal action, saying, “This is pure defamation of character… NSIB needs to come and actually clear this thing.”
In response, the Director-General of the NSIB, Captain Alex Badeh, dismissed the allegations of a smear campaign. “We have heard them say it is a smear campaign against the airline. But I must point out that this is not our first preliminary report we’ve published. We have published countless. So, it is a little surprising to suddenly hear that it is a smear campaign against Air Peace,” Badeh said. He clarified that the NSIB itself did not conduct the tests but that they were carried out by the Rivers State Hospital Management, with the report available the next day.
Air Peace, in its own response, supported its crew, noting that the co-pilot had been cleared by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and had returned to active duty, which would not have happened if the results were confirmed. The airline stated it had not received any official communication from the NSIB regarding these findings over a month after the incident, questioning the timeline and process. The airline maintains a strict policy on alcohol and drug use, conducting frequent random tests on crew members.
The conflicting accounts have raised serious questions about coordination between Nigeria’s aviation agencies and have sparked concern among passengers and industry experts about the rigour of safety enforcement.
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