The Ill fated NAF plane that crashed in Kaduna that killed the Chief Of Army Staff (COAS), Lieutenant-General Ibrahim Attahiru, was said to have touched down on the runway before it went up in flames.
A NAF source who does not want to be mentioned in print, told Saturday Sun, that “it is a Beechcraft aircraft, the same type that crashed at the Abuja Airport recently and they left Abuja late Friday afternoon.
What happened was that they were supposed to have landed at the NAF base, but they now diverted them because of the weather because they have more instruments, landing instrument at the Kaduna international airport than that of the NAF.
So because of the weather they don’t want them to land at the NAF base. The tower now diverted them to the airport.
The plane touched the ground successfully but skidded off the runway. We don’t know what happened; may be the pilot lost control on the runway. That is what the investigators would have to find out.
It is not that it explode midair, no. It landed and crashed within the airport. It did not crash land or developed any technical fault. You know there are two runways at the Kaduna international airport. We have 05 and Runway 06, it depends on the direction an aircraft is coming from. But the aircraft landed on runway 05. If you are coming through the right angle you will be made to land at runway 06, and if it’s through the left angle it’s runway 05.