By Celestine Okafor (Editor-in-Chief/Defence Correspondent) @CeleOkaf11
Tragedy struck this Friday evening, May 21, 2021, as the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lieutenant-General Ibrahim Attahiru, and about ten other military officers and crew members, died in a plane crash that occurred in Kaduna state.
The plane, a Nigerian Airforce Aircraft, is the third aircraft belonging to the Nigerian Airforce that crashed in three months in recent times.
The first NAF aircraft crash which claimed the lives of seven officers and crew occurred at a location close to the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja. The NAF personnel were on a return journey from a surveillance expedition for the rescue of kidnapped Niger State school children.
The second crash involving two NAF pilots happened in Borno state when the aircraft reportedly missed the radar and is yet to be found.
A statement on Friday shortly after the news of the crash by the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) on Friday night, confirmed that the crash happened around Kaduna International Airport on Friday evening.
The Nigerian Air Force Director of Public Relations and Information, (DOPRI), Air Commodore Edward Gabkwet, said in the statement that, “An air crash involving a @NigAirForce aircraft occurred this evening near the Kaduna International Airport. The immediate cause of the crash is still being ascertained. “
The identities of those involved in the weekend air disaster are yet to be made known by NAF as at press time, but military sources disclosed that the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) and about ten of his aides, most of who were senior officers, however, were among those who lost their lives in the plane crash.
...More updates from Nigerian NewsLeader Newspaper Online. NNL.
