Only pilot died in Adamawa jet crash, says NAF

Authorities of the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) have described as a disservice to the general public reports that more than one person died in the Saturday evening N7 Fighter jet crash in Hong, Adamawa State.

Meanwhile, the crash has been attributed to poor maintenance culture of service platforms and low professional capacity of personnel.

The NAF Director of Public Relations and Information (DoPRI), Air Commodore Dele Alonge, told The Guardian in Abuja yesterday that he was compelled to debunk some reports that more than one person died in the crash. “All those people writing that all passengers on board died, know where they got their own information from. It was only the pilot that died. How many people does an N7-Ni carry, it was just the pilot.

“We do disservice to ourselves, the public must not be fed with wrong information. So it is not a question of how many people that died in the crash, it was just the pilot who was the only person inside.”

Alonge, who insisted that the N7 fighter jet carries only the pilot, said “people have to know the difference between a helicopter, a passenger jet and a fighter jet. The jet, unfortunately, ran into bad weather and it crashed, killing the pilot who was the only person on board.”

In a statement late Saturday night, Alonge said N7-Ni fighter jet, code NAF 801, was returning to the “base from an interdiction mission” before it “crashed due to bad weather around Hong, in Hong Local Government Area of Adamawa State. It was not under enemy fire that the jet went down. “There was no survivor as the pilot of the aircraft lost his life in the unfortunate incident”.

Alonge also pointed out that the Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar, like the August 29th Dornier 228 crash in Kaduna, has set up a committee to investigate the cause of the accident.

A source at the NAF Headquarters, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said poor maintenance culture is the cause of most of the crashes. “The F7-Ni fighters are relatively new, compared to others. They are made in China, very effective, but like I said earlier, maintenance is the problem, considering the volume of usage in recent time. The Mi-35 attack helicopters and Alpha Jet airplanes are the most used in the fight against terror in the Northeast”.

A security expert and retired military officer, Leonald Olumide, said “there is more to the Adamawa crash than has been told the public, because the report is that there were more than one jet coming back from the mission. This happened early Saturday evening, but the information was released late at night. So there is more to it, than has been said.