AIB releases three preliminary reports on incidents involving Air Peace

The Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) Nigeria has released the preliminary reports on incidents involving three aircraft owned and operated by Air Peace Limited.

The bureau in a statement said the preliminary reports are not the final reports as they contain details of the initial facts, discussions and findings surrounding the occurrences; which include information gathered from witness statements, flight recorders, Health and Usage Monitoring System (HUMS) Data, Flight Data Monitoring (FDM) data, and preliminary inspection of the accident sites and the wreckages.

Therefore, the investigations on these incidents are still ongoing and final reports on these occurrences will be released at the conclusion of these investigations.

The reports released by AIB included the incident involving Air Peace Limited B737-300 aircraft with nationality and registration marks 5N-BUK at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos on May 15, 2019.

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Findings from AIB show that the flight crew were certified and qualified to conduct the flight in accordance with applicable regulations, the captain was the pilot flying while the First Officer was the pilot monitoring, the aircraft landed on runway 18R at 19:34 h. and was taxied to the apron and the passengers disembarked normally.

A post-incident inspection of the aircraft showed substantial damage to the aircraft structure and its No. 2 engine cowling and Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) recording of the occurrence was overwritten.

AIB also released the report on the  incident involving the airline’s B737-500 aircraft with nationality and registration marks 5N-BRN at Port Harcourt International Airport, Port Harcourt on June 22, 2019.

Findings on the incident show that the aircraft has a valid certificate of airworthiness, the aircraft drifted left of runway 21 and touched down with the left main wheel on the grass verge and its right main wheel on the runway shoulder, at a distance of 1,260 m from the runway threshold, and the aircraft came to a stop at a distance of 1,620 m from the threshold of runway 21 with the landing gears stuck in the mud.

Also, the aircraft right wing tip at its final position was aligned with the edge of the runway shoulder, the crew and passengers disembarked without any injury through the forward service door (R1) using moveable passenger stairs and there was no landing time recorded on the ATC transcript.

Also released is the report on the incident involving Air Peace Limited B737-300 aircraft with nationality and registration marks 5N-BQO at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos on July 23, 2019.

The bureau gave some immediate safety recommendations 2019-004 affecting the airlines and the agencies.

According to AIB, “NCAA should ensure that all airline operators review their SOPs to include procedure for isolating power to the cockpit voice recorder to preserve its contents from being overwritten, in the event of any reportable occurrence; Air Peace Limited should ensure that flight crew adheres to strict compliance with Company Operations Manual (OM Part A) Chapter 11 (11.4.3) on Preservation of Recordings.