Multiple flights disrupted as equipment damages Air Peace aircraft

Several Air Peace flights were disrupted on Friday when a ground handling equipment damaged the airline’s Embraer 195-E2 aircraft, a new plane recently delivered to the airline.

The incident occured at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos.

The incident occurred after a luggage conveyor belt vehicle belonging to the Nigerian Aviation Handling Company (NAHCO) reportedly collided with the aircraft’s engine while it was on the apron.

The aircraft, registered 5N-BYH, had completed passenger boarding and was preparing to operate Flight P47750 from Lagos to Accra when the collision happened.

The impact caused visible damage to the aircraft, including a dent and tear on the thrust reverser cowling, a key component of the engine assembly.

As a precautionary safety measure, the aircraft was immediately grounded pending technical inspection.

Passengers already on board were asked to disembark, resulting in significant delays and operational disruptions.

It was learnt that nine scheduled flights originally assigned to the aircraft for the day were affected, forcing the airline to rebook passengers on alternative services or reschedule flights.

The incident has once again raised concerns over ground handling safety standards at Nigeria’s busiest airport.

Daily Trust reports that ground incidents involving an aircraft and ground support equipment (GSE) has become a recurring issue in the industry.

Earlier in the year, a similar incident involving another aircraft of the airline reportedly cost the airline approximately $3.5 million to fix the engine cowling.

However, there was no injury reported in the latest incident.

Director of Public Affairs and Consumer Protection of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Mr. Michael Achimugu confirmed the incident.

He stated that passengers were already boarded when a ground handler’s conveyor belt hit the aircraft, causing damage to the engine cover.

“Passengers had to be deboarded. The aircraft was scheduled to fly nine sectors. All passengers waiting for its operations are automatically disrupted, and the airline will face backlash, refund issues, compensation, etc, for a damage that was not its fault, and it would spend large sums of foreign currency to fix.

“The other time, it was a bird strike that cost (by the airline’s admission), over three million dollars to fix. It took an entire month for the airline manufacturer to send them the replacement for the “engine cowling dent.”

“Today’s aircraft was one of the brand new E2’s, and it was fully booked until January 15th, 2026. Now, all innocent passengers booked for its operations will experience one delay or cancellation.

“But airlines will not throw other service providers under the bus. They will simply announce “technical/operational reasons” and then they would bear, not just the anger of justifiably aggravated passengers, but the consequences per Part 19 of the NCAA Regulations 2023.

“Air Peace has suffered a lot of these technical issues through no fault of theirs. We need to start naming and shaming poorly trained ground handling personnel whose inefficiency costs the airlines great reputational, financial, and technical damage. We will now be looking to strengthen the regulations in a way that also heavily sanctions service providers for matters like the type in the images below,” Achimugu said.

Achimugu advised that in situations like this, airlines should not be held responsible, adding that “passengers should be informed, most honestly, about the reasons for disruptions caused by these unfortunate scenarios.”

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