Treat Military Plane Crashes As National Emergency, CAN Tasks Buhari

The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), yesterday, mourned the Chief of Army Staff, Lt-Gen Ibrahim Attahiru; and 10 other military personnel, who died when a Nigerian Air Force Beachcraft 350 jet crashed near the Kaduna International Airport, last Friday.
The Christian body also expressed concerns at the spate of military plane crashes in the country, while urging President Muhammadu Buhari, to treat the matter as a national emergency to stop bright minds in the military from dying avoidable deaths.
It would be recalled that, at least, 20 military officers have lost their lives in the last three months in three crashes involving NAF jets, the latest being the Kaduna crash.
The Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB), Nigeria has since recovered the black box of the Beachcraft 350 jet that crashed, last Friday, and said that its investigators would download and analyse vital information contained in the recorders to ascertain the cause of the crash.
But CAN, in a statement, yesterday, signed by its National Secretary, Daramola Joseph, stressed that the government must ascertain that all planes were fit for flights before they take off the skies.
The statement was titled, ‘CAN Commiserates With President Muhammadu Buhari, Nigerian Military And The Families Of Those Who Died In The Most Recent Military Plane Crash’.
The statement read in part, “While our hearts are filled with sorrow for the supreme price they paid, we acknowledge with sense of gratitude to them, their selfless services to all of us in the nation”.