The traditional ruler of Igbokoda, Oba Afolabi Odidiomo, has praised the pilot of the Nigerian Air Force aircraft that crashed in the community, saying his actions spared the town from a greater disaster.
Speaking to journalists on Wednesday, the monarch said the crash, which killed all 25 people on board, would have caused far more devastation if the aircraft had fallen within the town.
The NAF ATR-42 aircraft, registration NAF 931, crashed in the Igbokoda area of Ondo State on Monday, October 5, while on a routine mission from Benin to Lagos.
The Air Force confirmed five crew members and 20 passengers were on board, with no survivors.
The plane went down in a swampy area near the Naval Base in Igbokoda after air traffic controllers lost contact with it at about 9:13am. Search and recovery operations have continued in the difficult terrain.
Odidiomo said the community had been deeply disturbed by the incident.“We may have been hearing about crashes, but we’ve never had the first-hand experience as we’re having today.
"For the past three days, all of us have been so disturbed, but there’s only one thing that I know unifies the whole of us here. We celebrate the pilot extremely for his sacrifice of his own life and the lives of those on the plane and sparing us in this town, because if the plane had fallen in this town or anywhere, the effect would have been more than this,” he said.
The monarch added that the community remained pained by the loss of lives within its territory.“But nevertheless, we are pained that lives have to be lost in this manner within our own territory. We are not happy about this,” he said.
Odidiomo noted that residents immediately mobilised after witnessing the aircraft go down.
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