Presidential aircraft handed over to Air Force crashes

One of the Presidential jet which was recently handed over to the Nigerian Air Force, Agusta AW 101, a medium-lift helicopter specially designed for military operations, has crashed at the Nigerian Air Force base, Makurdi. The crash is coming two months after President Muhammadu Buhari handed over two over the two ballistics defence capable aircraft from the Presidential fleet to the Nigerian Air Force. According to a report, the jet crashed due to poor training of crew members saddled to man the operations of the aircraft. After the handover, the aircraft was repainted from the initial white and green to camouflage. A source told the news website that damages to the jet were significant but no life was lost to the crash. “No fatality but significant damage to aircraft considering the fact that they hardly do insurance in the military. The flight engineer was injured.The crashed presidential aircraft handed over to the Air Force The crashed presidential aircraft handed over to the Air Force The aircraft, Agusta AW101, which is a large armoured helicopter cost about $21million each (N10.5billion) making it 130% more expensive than the average aircraft of its class. But the Nigerian Air Force, PRO, Group Captain Dele Famuyiwa, has denied the report that one of the aircraft crashed. “It was not a crash. I wouldn’t call it a crash because it just fell on the ground in Makurdi.I can say maybe it was an incident. You know accident is a higher degree of incidence. It was just an occurrence that did not take any life or equipment. Cars can malfunction and the same thing with any machine.” He said the crash was not as a result of low training and skill of crew member noting that the same crew had managed the aircraft at the presidency.