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Nigeria has declared three days of national mourning after a military aircraft crashed in southern Ondo State, killing all 32 people on board, according to Reuters.
The aircraft was on a routine mission from Benin City to Lagos when it went down near a naval base on Monday morning. Aviation Minister Festus Keyamo said officials were first informed of the aircraft’s disappearance at 09:13, and that attempts to contact it by radio were unsuccessful.
The plane was later confirmed to have crashed near a naval base in Igbokoda. Search and rescue efforts were under way, while a local resident told the BBC that the aircraft had come down near a swamp and that clothes and shoes were found at the site. Smoke was seen rising from the area.
Tinubu offered condolences for the 25 passengers and seven crew members, ordered a full investigation and directed that national flags be flown at half-mast across the country. “This is a painful moment for our Armed Forces and for the entire nation,” he said.
The president also ordered the Air Force to investigate the cause of the crash. The identities of those killed have not been released; authorities said the officers’ names would be made public after their families had been informed.
The aircraft was described as an “ATR-42”, a model that can carry between 30 and 50 passengers, according to its manufacturers. The crash is among Nigeria’s deadliest air disasters in recent years. In May 2021, the country’s army chief, Lt-Gen Ibrahim Attahiru, and 10 other officers died in a crash in Kaduna State. Seven people were killed in a separate military aircraft crash near a runway in Abuja in February of the same year.
