ATTAHIRU: “Baby pilot flying COAS is a no”

As the death of COAS Gen Ibrahim Attahiru and 10 others last Friday continues to generate reactions, military experts are giving more insights into how avoidable the last fatal air crash and others in recent times were.

According to a former military intelligence officer, Captain Umar Babangida (retd.), it is wrong for flight lieutenants in Nigerian armed forces to fly service chiefs.

The ill-fated military aircraft conveying Attahiru was piloted by a 29-year-old  Flt-Lt. Alfred Olufade before it crashed around the Kaduna International Airport 6pm that day.

The defence headquarters said the immediate cause was bad weather, which cause the diversion of the aircraft from its initial flight path to the air force base in Kaduna to the civil airport.

But Babangida, during an interview on AIT online May 26, said his course mate who was a NAF officer but now works for an international airline, flew into Kaduna, and landed safely at the airport about the same time the military plane crashed that evening.

“He told us that the entire atmosphere was red with dust, and he needed the experience in the profession to land. The moment he landed, he knew there would be no taking off for them until further notice,” he said.

“This colleague of mine, who is also an ex-NAF officer has been flying for more than 20 years. If you are 20 years in the NAF, if you are not a general, you should be sweating to become one.”

As a flight lieutenant, the late pilot Olufade, 29, had no more than six years’ experience flying.

‘So, you don’t expect a pilot who has been flying for just six years to be as experienced as a pilot who has been flying for 20 years,’ Babangida added.

“I don’t think you will find any six-year-old pilot on the President’s fleet.”

The military authorities hve commenced further investigation into the Friday crash as the Bureau of Accident Investigation analyses the flight recorders recovered from the crash.