Nigeria, April 18 -- Passengers on a late afternoon flight out of Benin were preparing for a routine journey to Abuja when, moments after take-off, an unexpected impact forced yet another disruption, marking a third reported bird strike involving United Nigeria Airline within about 48 hours.

PREMIUM TIMES earlier reported that the airline recorded two separate bird-strike incidents within 24 hours, forcing the grounding of two aircraft and disrupting scheduled operations across its network.

One incident occurred during landing at Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, while another affected a CRJ-900 aircraft arriving from Kano.

At the time, the airline described the back-to-back incidents as "deeply concerning," noting that they brough...