<\/p>\n
By Gabriel Agbeja<\/p>\n
The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Mr Festus Keyamo, on Monday confirmed the crash of a military aircraft in Ondo State, with 32 people onboard.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Keyamo said the aircraft, with tail number NGR 931, crashed close to the Naval Base in Igbokoda, Ondo State.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The minister disclosed this in a statement issued in Lagos on Monday and made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
According to him, the aircraft was en route Lagos from Benin when Air Traffic Controllers lost contact with it.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He said the aircraft was reported missing at about 9:13 a.m. on Monday.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cI regret to inform the general public that Air Traffic Controllers have informed me of the disappearance of a military aircraft with tail number NGR 931,\u201d Keyamo said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He said all efforts to raise the aircraft on radio proved abortive after contact was lost.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Keyamo said information subsequently received confirmed that the aircraft had crashed close to the Naval Base in Igbokoda.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cThe wreckage has been located and search and rescue operations are ongoing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The minister said preliminary information indicated that 25 passengers and seven crew members were aboard the aircraft.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Keyamo, however, clarified that the control and regulation of military aircraft were completely outside the authority of the Ministry of Aviation and Aerospace Development.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He said the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority also had no authority over the control and regulation of military aircraft.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
According to him, he had spoken with the Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Sunday Aneke, over the incident.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Keyamo\u00a0 pledged the ministry\u2019s total cooperation and assistance in the ongoing search and rescue efforts.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The minister said further information on the unfortunate incident would be made available subsequently.(NAN)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Mr Festus Keyamo, on Monday confirmed the crash of a military aircraft in Ondo State, with 32 people onboard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[328,482],"class_list":["post-1403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-aviation","tag-crash"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1403"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1405,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1403\/revisions\/1405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}