The aircraft, an airside source told our correspondent, had boarded passengers at 10:37 a.m., but had to disembark its passengers at 11:36 a.m. after the incident.
A Nigerian Aviation Handling Company (NAHCO) Plc truck damaged an Air Peace Boeing 737 aircraft at the airside of Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos on Thursday.
The aircraft, which SaharaReporters learnt was about to depart the airport for a domestic flight, had its cargo aft damaged by the NAHCO truck while it was loading check-in passengers’ luggage into the belly of the aircraft.
The aircraft, an airside source told our correspondent, had boarded passengers at 10:37 a.m., but had to disembark its passengers at 11:36 a.m. after the incident.
The incident caused disruption to the airline’s operations as the passengers were conveyed to the boarding gate while arrangements were made to put them in another available aircraft.
A source close to the airline told our correspondent that the truck had finished loading the check-in luggage before the NAHCO truck hit the airplane. He blamed the truck driver for the incident.
“The truck was actually loading passengers’ luggage into the belly of the aircraft before the incident. He [the driver] was not careful enough because if he was, he would have observed its [the truck’s] closeness to the aircraft that was at the apron and was preparing to taxi to the takeoff point,” he said.
When our correspondent contacted the spokesman of Air Peace, Chris Iwarah, he confirmed the incident and promised to send out a press release to that effect, but as at the time of filing this report, he has yet to do so.
