<\/p>\n
By Muhyideen Jimoh<\/p>\n
President Bola Tinubu has declared a three-day national mourning for Nigerian Air Force personnel who died in a military aircraft crash on Monday.<\/p>\n
He also \u200c\u200c\u200d\u2060\u2060\u200d\u2060\u2060\u200d\u200d\u200c\u200d\u200c\u2060\u200cdirected that the national flag be flown at half-mast throughout the country as a mark of respect for the deceased officers.<\/p>\n
This is contained in a statement issued by Presidential Spokesperson, Mr Bayo Onanuga, on Monday in Abuja.<\/p>\n
Tinubu had earlier expressed sadness over the crash involving a Nigerian Air Force ATR-42 aircraft near a naval base in Igbokoda, Ondo.<\/p>\n
The aircraft, carrying 25 passengers and seven crew members, was on a routine mission from Benin to Lagos when it crashed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a painful moment for our Armed Forces and for the entire nation.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur Air Force personnel put their lives on the line every day to secure Nigeria.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir sacrifice will never be forgotten,\u201d Tinubu said in a condolence message to the Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Sunday Aneke.<\/p>\n
The President had directed the Nigerian Air Force to immediately commence a thorough investigation into the cause of the crash, saying the probe should help prevent future occurrences.<\/p>\n
The identities of the deceased personnel will be released by the Air Force after their families have been notified. (NAN)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Bola Tinubu has declared a three-day national mourning for Nigerian Air Force personnel who died in a military aircraft crash on Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":762,"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":[],"class_list":["post-1437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Screenshot_20260204-125041-1.webp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1437","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=1437"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1438,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1437\/revisions\/1438"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}