Passengers stranded as ground equipment damages Air Peace plane

For the umpteenth time, an Air Peace aircraft was damaged yesterday at the Murtala Muhammed Airport domestic terminal when it was hit by a ground handling truck while passengers’ luggage was being loaded into the cargo hold.

The flight P4 7140 QUO STD 1100 heading to Uyo, Akwa Ibom boarded at 1037hrs had to abort take off when the incident happened, it was learnt.

Daily Trust correspondent who was at hour GAT yesterday reported that over 100 passengers on board the aircraft were disembarked and conveyed to the boarding gate following the incident.

A source who pleaded anonymity said, “The aircraft which was scheduled to take off at 10:35 a.m was preparing for take off when the ground handling truck belonging to NAHCO hit the baggage hold forcing the aircraft to abort take off.”

The incident of ground handing equipment damaging aircraft is not new in the industry. The same Air Peace had in April this year had one of its aircraft grounded in Benin, Edo state when it was damaged by another ground handling truck.

An official who spoke our correspondent blamed with the development on negligence on the part of the driver of the truck, while stressing the need for training and retraining of the officials to for safe operations.

As at the time of filing this report, the flight was yet to take off as it was rescheduled for 6:30 p.m amidst grumbling from passengers while engineers were still working on the aircraft.

In a statement issued later in the day, the airline through its spokesman, Chris Iwarah said the aircraft has been declared unserviceable, saying the door of the rear cargo hold of the aircraft was impacted and damaged in the incident.

“Air Peace confirmed that officials of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) were already investigating the incident at the Lagos airport on Thursday”, the statement said.