By Jemimah Wellington, JKNewsMedia Correspondent
FLIGHT OPERATIONS on an Air Peace service scheduled for the Lagos Accra route were disrupted after a ground handling conveyor belt struck the aircraft shortly before departure, causing damage to its engine cover and forcing the deboarding of passengers who had already boarded.
The incident occurred while the aircraft was on the ground preparing for takeoff.
Passengers had completed boarding when the conveyor belt operated by a ground handling service provider collided with the aircraft, prompting immediate safety measures.
Air Peace spokesperson Osifo Whiskey Efe confirmed the incident on Friday and said the airline acted promptly to ensure passenger safety.
“The information is that a conveyor belt hit our aircraft. For safety measures, we ensured that the passengers who were onboard were disembarked and of course put on another aircraft,” Efe said.
The Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) also confirmed the development. Michael Achimugu, through Director of Public Affairs and Consumer Protection, said the collision resulted in damage to the aircraft engine cover and disrupted the airline’s scheduled operations.
“Passengers were already boarded when a ground handler’s conveyor belt hit the aircraft, causing damage to the engine cover as passengers had to be deboarded,” Achimugu said.
He said the affected aircraft had been scheduled to operate nine flight sectors, meaning that all passengers booked on its subsequent flights would experience delays or cancellations.
“The aircraft was scheduled to fly nine sectors. All passengers waiting for its operations are automatically disrupted,” he said.
Achimugu said the airline would face multiple consequences arising from the disruption, despite the damage not being caused by the carrier.
“The airline will face backlash, refund issues, compensation, etc, for damage that was not its fault, and it would spend large sums of foreign currency to fix,” he said.
He referred to a previous incident involving the airline to illustrate the financial impact of such occurrences.
“The other time, it was a bird strike that cost, by the airline’s admission, over $3,000,000 to fix saying it took an entire month for the airline manufacturer to send them the replacement for the engine cowling dent,” Achimugu said.
He said the aircraft involved in the latest incident was one of Air Peace’s newly acquired E2 aircraft and had been fully booked well into the new year.
“Today’s aircraft was one of the brand new E2’s, and it was fully booked until January 15 2026. Now, all innocent passengers booked for its operations will experience one delay or cancellation,” he said.
Achimugu said airlines typically avoid publicly blaming service providers responsible for such incidents and instead attribute disruptions to technical or operational reasons.
“But airlines will not throw other service providers under the bus. They will simply announce technical or 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,” he said.
He added that Air Peace had experienced several similar technical disruptions through no fault of the airline.
“Air Peace has suffered a lot of these technical issues through no fault of theirs,” he said.
The NCAA official said there was a need to address inefficiencies among ground handling personnel whose actions result in damage to aircraft and operational disruptions.
“There is need to name and shame poorly trained ground handling personnel whose inefficiency costs the airlines great reputational, financial and technical damage,” Achimugu said.
He said the aviation regulator was considering regulatory measures that would impose heavier sanctions on service providers responsible for such incidents.
“We will now be looking to strengthen the regulations in a way that also heavily sanctions service providers for matters like this,” he said.
Achimugu said airlines should not be held responsible for disruptions arising from ground handling failures and called for more transparency in communicating the causes of flight disruptions to passengers.
“Airlines should not be held responsible for situations like this, and passengers should be informed most honestly about the reasons for disruptions caused by these unfortunate scenarios,” he said.
He expressed hope that insurance arrangements would cover the losses associated with the incident.
“I do hope that there is enough insurance to cover the cost of losses like this one,” he said.
Achimugu also appealed for understanding from passengers affected by the disruption and addressed the availability of standby aircraft.
“In advance, I call for the understanding of passengers who were scheduled to fly this aircraft. I have asked about standby aircraft,” he said.
“The airline has two, which is commendable, but those two have been deployed to cover two other similar situations. In any case, even if they were available, their sitting capacities are less than the damaged E2,” he said.
He said incidents of this nature often contribute to public perceptions that airlines are responsible for operational failures without full disclosure of underlying causes.
“These are some of the behind the scene situations that make airlines seem culpable,” Achimugu said.
He added that greater public education and clearer disclosure were necessary to prevent the aviation industry from appearing secretive.
“There is a need to educate more and ensure to unbundle the facts so that the industry does not continue to seem like a secret coven that swallows information behind layers of cover ups,” he said.
