The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) has denied the reports making the rounds that one of its warplanes in its fleet crashed, on Sunday.
Reports had emerged on Sunday evening that a Nigeria Air Force jet that left the NAF Base in Yola, the Adamawa State, for an anti-banditry operation crashed in a village in Kaduna State.
It was also reported rescue parties had been dispatched to search for crew members, including the pilot.
But the Air Force promptly denied that any of its jets crashed in Kaduna.
NAF’s Director of Public Relations and Information (DOPRI), Air Commodore Edward Gabkwet, said the Air Force Headquarters had not received any operational report of crash of its aircraft and that no Alpha Jet left Yola for Kaduna.
The alleged accident would be the fourth NAF jet to have crashed in 2021, including that which killed former Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Lt.-Gen. Ibrahim Attahiru and 10 other officers in Kaduna two months ago.
On April 2, another Alpha jet crashed in Borno during an operation while there was the Minna-bound Beechcraft KingAir350i crash of March 21, that killed all seven people onboard.
According to reports, there have been 11 military plane crashes in Nigerian since 2015 that killed no fewer than 33 officers.
These include the NAF plane crash, which killed seven onboard on August 29, 2015; F-7NI jet crash on October 10, 2015 and Augusta Westland crash in Makurdi on November 15, 2015.
