Interim Statement on Boeing 737-300 aircraft, 5N-BQO

On 23rd July 2019 at 10:38 h, a Boeing 737-300 aircraft with nationality and registration marks 5N-BQO departed Port Harcourt for Lagos with 133 persons on board and six (6) crew members, as APK7191. The Co-pilot was the Pilot Flying (PF) and Captain was the Pilot Monitoring (PM). The flight operated on an Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) flight plan. At 11:26:12 h, the Control Tower gave APK7191 final landing clearance as “APK7191 exercise caution, runway surface wet, wind 290˚/06 kt runway 18R cleared to land which the crew acknowledged. The Captain reported noticing that the aircraft was not aligned with the runway centerline during final landing callouts: 50, 30, and took control while announcing, “I have controls” and “correcting back to the centerline”. The crew stated that “the right wheel touched down simultaneously, we lost visibility and nose wheel touched down.” The aircraft landed on the nose gear causing the nose wheel to break off. At 11:28:43, APK7191 requested for tow truck and on further enquiry from CT, the flight crew responded that the gear had collapsed.