Passengers escape death as plane loses engine midair

ONE of the planes in the fleet of Dana Air on Friday suffered a midair incident and lost one of its engines in the process.

The aircraft with passengers on board was heading to Port Harcourt, Rivers State, when the incident, generally known as bird strike, happened.

Spokesperson for the airline, Kingsley Ezenwa, said the bird strike, which occurred at 11.00 a.m., forced the pilot to make a return to the departure point in Lagos.

Ezenwa, in a statement made available to journalists, said: “On the 21st of April, one of our aircraft with registration number 5N-SRI operating our 11.00 a.m. flight from Lagos to Port Harcourt, had an air return due to bird strike during take-off from Lagos, and our captain took a professional decision and returned to the Lagos airport.

“A bird strike is a collision between a bird and an aircraft which is airborne and as per standard safety procedure, which is the hallmark of our operation, our pilot returned to base.

“Our guests have however been reprotected on another aircraft to ensure that their itinerary is not entirely disrupted. The aircraft is currently being evaluated by our engineers to determine the effect of the bird strike on the affected engine.

“At Dana Air, the safety and comfort of our guests will remain a top priority to us and we will stop at nothing in our commitment towards offering a safe and reliable air transport.”

The issue of bird strike has become one of the greatest challenges confronting airlines in the country.

Birds are described as a threat to safety for crew and passengers on board aircraft as they can cause major damage to an airplane in a short period of time and sometimes that lack of time to recover can lead to injuries or fatalities.

They most often occur during take-off or landing, or during low-altitude flight, when an airplane is most likely to be sharing the same airspace as a bird.

Passengers beat up airline official

In another development, there was pandemonium on Friday at the departure hall of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, when enraged passengers whose Air Peace flight from Abuja to Benin was cancelled, beat a staff member of the airline until he was rescued by security operatives.

It was gathered that the Air Peace flight 4P7172 from Abuja to Benin was initially scheduled to leave Abuja around 11.00 a.m. The flight was, however, delayed to 2.00 p.m. and eventually cancelled at 4.00 p.m., prompting passengers who had waited for hours to descend on the staff of the airline.

“I have been here since 10 in the morning. They initially shifted the flight to 2-00 p.m. Now they are telling us it has been cancelled. We won’t accept this. After wasting all my time, they are now telling us it has been cancelled. They are telling us now that the door of the aircraft is faulty. We won’t accept this,” a passenger, Henry Onoselase, said.

As of the time of this report, security operatives were still pacifying the aggrieved passengers.

The passengers disrupted the airport’s activities by blocking all exit routes, forcing other airlines to smuggle passengers through their aircraft’s back doors.

Meanwhile, Air Peace has condemned the attacks on its staff by some unruly passengers in Abuja, Lagos, Calabar and other parts of the country, warning that it would no longer condone members of the public endangering the lives of its workers.

A statement issued by the Corporate Communications Manager of Air Peace, Mr Chris Iwarah, regretted that security agents had failed to halt the trend of members of the public invading airport facilities to attack airline workers.