Conveyor Belt Damages Air Peace Aircraft, Disrupts Lagos–Accra Flight

An aircraft belonging to Air Peace has been damaged after a conveyor belt operated by a ground handling service collided with it at the airport, forcing the disruption of the airline’s Lagos–Accra flight.

The incident occurred on Friday after passengers had already boarded the aircraft, resulting in their eventual deboarding.

Confirming the development, the Director of Public Affairs and Consumer Protection at the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Michael Achimugu, disclosed the incident in a post on X on Friday.

According to him, the collision damaged the aircraft’s engine cover, making it unsafe to proceed with the flight.

“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,” Achimugu said.

He explained that the affected aircraft was scheduled to operate nine flight sectors, warning that all passengers booked on its subsequent routes would experience delays or cancellations.

Achimugu noted that despite the incident not being the airline’s fault, Air Peace would still bear the consequences, including passenger dissatisfaction, refunds, compensation obligations, and the high cost of repairs.

“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 stated.

He recalled a previous bird strike incident which, by the airline’s own admission, cost over $3 million to repair and grounded the aircraft for about a month while waiting for replacement engine parts.

He further disclosed that the damaged aircraft was one of Air Peace’s newly acquired Embraer E2 jets and was fully booked until January 15, 2026.

“Now, all innocent passengers booked for its operations will experience one delay or cancellation,” Achimugu said.

The NCAA spokesman lamented that airlines often shield other service providers from public scrutiny by attributing such disruptions to “technical” or “operational” reasons, while bearing the full brunt of passenger anger and regulatory consequences under Part 19 of the NCAA Regulations 2023.

He stressed that Air Peace has suffered several such incidents through no fault of its own and called for greater accountability within the aviation ecosystem.

Achimugu emphasized the need to identify and sanction poorly trained ground handling personnel whose errors inflict reputational, financial, and technical damage on airlines.

He added that the NCAA is considering stricter regulations to impose heavier sanctions on service providers responsible for such incidents.

“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.

While expressing hope that insurance would cover the losses, Achimugu appealed for passenger understanding, noting that Air Peace’s available standby aircraft were already deployed to manage similar situations and also had smaller seating capacities than the damaged E2 jet.

He concluded by calling for better public education and transparent communication to prevent the aviation industry from appearing secretive to passengers.