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The Nigerian Aviation Handling Company (NAHCO) has suspended some of its staff and is probing allegations of sabotage after one of its stair trucks damaged an Air Peace (P4, Lagos) A320-200, ES-SAZ (msn 3308), at Lagos on January 4, 2023.

In a statement, NAHCO Group Executive Director of Corporate Services, Sola Obabori, said: "We have invited the relevant regulatory and security agencies to [...] investigate the subject of sabotage and take an independent look at the incident. To enable proper and unhindered investigation, some senior operations officials have been suspended, while others are being investigated." Obabori said NAHCO had good relations with the airline.

Schedules were disrupted after the stair truck had rammed the Air Peace aircraft, which was being readied to ferry passengers from Lagos to Owerri on an early-morning flight. "Our staff are well-trained; accidents do happen. In this particular case, our operative was driving to attend to another flight that arrived before Air Peace," Obabori told The Sun Nigeria.

However, Air Peace said it suspected sabotage because it was the third incident in a month that NAHCO equipment had caused damage to one of its aircraft.

"This is the third time in one month. The aircraft is now grounded, and we don't know when it will be up again," spokesman Stanley Olisa told Nigerian Flight Deck. "The NAHCO staffer had no reason to be where he was. He was not assigned to the aircraft and how he rammed into our aircraft is still shocking."

"This is going to cause revenue loss for us as an airline. The aircraft was scheduled to operate several flights today (Wednesday) but could not do so, causing flight disruptions and delays. "He said the airline had laid a formal complaint with NAHCO.

The ch-aviation fleets advanced module shows Air Peace wet-leases eight A320-200s from Latvia's SmartLynx Airlines (6Y, Riga) and its subsidiaries in Malta and Estonia.