The Nigerian Air Force has confirmed that one of its aircraft crashed into a residential house in Kaduna State killing all four crew and three passengers.
Commodore Dele Alonge, air force spokesman, said the Dornier-228 aircraft had taken off from Kaduna Military Airfield Saturday morning bound for Abuja when it crashed in a house in the Ribadu area.
Alonge said bodies of those in the plane have been recovered and fire fighters are at the crash site trying to prevent the fire from spreading.
The statement reads: “Nigerian Air Force Dornier-228 aircraft, with call sign NAF030, has crashed into a house at Ribadu Cantonment, Kaduna. Though no casualty was recorded on ground, there were no survivors among the passengers onboard the aircraft. The aircraft was Abuja bound and had taken-off at about 6:45am from the Kaduna Military Airfield before the mishap. Bodies of the passengers have been recovered and fire fighters are already at the crash site to curtail fire from spreading to other buildings within the vicinity.”
Alonge added that the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar, has aborted his official trip to Port Harcourt, Rivers State to visit the site of the air crash and families of some of the deceased personnel in company of the Air Officer Commanding Training Command, Air Vice Marshal Alikali Mamu.
Abubakar has also set up an investigation panel headed by an Air Vice Marshal to unravel the cause of the accident with immediate effect.
Earlier this month, a helicopter belonging to Bristow, a Houston, Texas-based firm that charters helicopters to oil and gas rigs, travelling from an oil rig crashed into a lagoon in Lagos, killing six people.
