In Brief
- A Nigerian military aircraft crashed on Monday in Ondo state, leaving no survivors among the 32 people on board.
- The Nigerian Air Force identified the downed plane as an ATR-42 configured for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions.
- All 25 passengers and seven crew members on board were killed in the crash.
All 32 people aboard a Nigerian Air Force ATR-42 aircraft lost their lives on Monday morning when the plane crashed into a swampy area opposite the Naval Base at Igbokoda in Ondo state. The twin-engine turboprop—configured for maritime patrol, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) operations—was conducting a routine military support flight from Benin City, Edo state, to Lagos when air traffic controllers lost signal contact at approximately 9:13 AM local time. The crash killed seven crew members and 25 passengers, comprising service personnel alongside family members traveling on the logistics flight.
Following the discovery of the wreckage by search and rescue teams, President Bola Tinubu issued an official statement confirming there were no survivors and directed the Chief of Air Staff to launch a comprehensive investigation into the incident. While military authorities work to notify next of kin before releasing the official manifest, investigators are focusing on flight logs, weather conditions, and wreckage analysis to identify the factors that caused the aircraft to go down.
