Villagers recount how Air Force plane crashed in Ondo

Shocked locals in a remote coastal fishing village in southwestern Nigeria on Tuesday recounted hearing a deafening thunderous sound when a Nigerian Air Force plane crashed into swampy waters killing all 25 people aboard.

In one of the country’s deadliest air disasters in recent years, 25 people were killed when the ATR-42 twin-engine turboprop went down in a swampy area near a naval base in Ondo state.

Initially officials gave a death toll of 32, but revised it down on Tuesday. Some civilians were on the plane, which was on a routine flight from Benin city to the commercial hub of Lagos.

An investigation has been launched, but among the first to rush to the scene were locals who volunteered in the initial search and rescue operation.

They described to AFP the moment the plane crashed.
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“We were sitting outside…and we saw the plane overhead making a loud sound. We were scared. It was already engulfed in flames. And we saw it crash,” villager and volunteer rescuer Akinte Omoteremi Toluwalase told AFP.

“Immediately we rushed down there in boats. But by the time we got there, the plane had sunk into the swamp. We tried our best to see if we could rescue the people, to no avail. But we saw human body parts and scraps from the plane floating in the water,” he said.

– No survivors –

Owoyemi Oluwadamilare, said he had seen boat accidents on the creeks before, “but I have never witnessed a plane crash before, … and of course I have seen it in movies”.

There were no survivors from the crash, the airforce said on Tuesday. Recovery operations are still going on, and so far it is unclear if any bodies have been recovered.

“The rescue team have not rested, they have been going about it since yesterday without rest to ensure they can bring the people in the plane out,” said Felisia Michel, another villager.

The plane crashed near the town of Igbokoda, located in Ilaje, an oil-producing region in southern Nigeria.

It is the deadliest crash in recent years in Africa’s most populous nation.

In May 2021, Nigeria’s top-ranking army commander, Lieutenant General Ibrahim Attahiru, and 10 other officers were killed when their plane crashed in bad weather while trying to land at northern Kaduna state airport.

Seven people died when a military plane crashed into a house in northern Nigeria, killing all those on board in August 2015.

The United States embassy in Nigeria expressed its condolences over the tragedy saying “we stand with the people of Nigeria and remain committed to our strong security partnership”.

AFP

Agency Report

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