31 years ago, darkest moment for the Nigeria Armed Forces. Has the story really changed? Carelessness and greed everywhere !
A Nigerian military-transport plane crashed soon after takeoff from Lagos, killing all 163 people aboard, officials said today.
Many of those killed on Saturday night in the crash of the Hercules C-130 were believed to be middle-ranking army, navy and air force officers attending a staff college course in northern Nigeria.
“The plane nose-dived three minutes after takeoff into a swampy area,” said an official in Abuja, the West African country’s new inland capital. Officials did not say where the C-130 came down.
The crash was Nigeria’s worst air disaster since 1973, when a Royal Jordanian Airlines Boeing 707 burst into flames on landing at Kano, another city in the north, killing 176 people.
Officials said many of the dead were believed to have been officers taking a course at the Nigerian Command and Staff College at Jaji, in northern Kaduna state, and that some others of them were instructors. The plane was heading for Kaduna, about 500 miles to the northeast.