Nigerian Air Force says all 25 aboard NAF 931 died in the Ondo crash

The Nigerian Air Force said on Tuesday that all 25 people aboard an ATR-42 that crashed on Monday in Ondo State were dead. The aircraft, registration NAF 931, was on a routine flight from Benin City to Lagos. Air traffic controllers lost contact with it at 08:13 GMT. The wreckage was later found near the coastal town of Igbokoda.

The air force figure is lower than the one aviation minister Festus Keyamo gave on Monday, when he said 32 people had been aboard. Director of public relations Air Commodore Ehimen Ejodame said in the Tuesday statement that NAF 931 carried five crew and 20 passengers. Search and rescue, run with other authorities, found no survivors. Chief of the Air Staff Air Marshal Sunday Kelvin Aneke called it a deeply painful moment for the service and the country, and said families would have the service's support.

The crew list released with the statement names Squadron Leader M. I. Aburime as flight captain, Squadron Leader A. P. Man-Ugwueje and Flight Lieutenant I. S. Bako as co-pilots, Warrant Officer Abubakar A. as an aircraft technician, and Corporal Uguru H. C. as an aircraft technician. The passenger list mixes serving personnel and civilians. It includes Flight Lieutenant T. L. Lazarus, Flight Lieutenant M. Akinloye, Flying Officer I. M. Adeshina, Master Warrant Officer Onwuka F., Master Warrant Officer Matini B. A., Warrant Officer Nuhu F. S., Flight Sergeant James R. B., Flight Sergeant Mohammed A. I., Sergeant Ani A. E., Sergeant Izibenikien S. I., Sergeant Alafuka C., Sergeant Mbadugha A. N., Lance Corporal Ugwuba F. C. and Lance Corporal Eledan G. E. The civilians named are Mrs Ezeh Nneka, Godstmine Tarabina, Joy Micheal, Sunday Micheal, Ukeme David and Gideon Omotola.

President Bola Tinubu ordered an investigation and declared three days of national mourning. The gap between Keyamo's 32 and the air force's 25 is the sort of revision that follows a crash in which the first public number comes from a ministry and the second from the operator's manifest. The manifest is the list families can check. The inquiry will have to explain the loss of contact at 08:13 GMT and the condition of the wreckage at Igbokoda, on the coastal edge of Ondo, short of the Lagos destination.

The ATR-42 is a twin-turboprop used by air forces for light transport. NAF 931 was not described as a combat sortie. Ejodame's statement called it a routine mission. That distinction matters for the inquiry's scope: a transport crash opens questions of maintenance, weather, loading and crew recency, rather than hostile fire. No official statement on Tuesday alleged an attack.

Nigeria has had a run of serious air accidents in recent years, civil and military. Monday's crash is among the deadlier military losses in that run, on the air force's own toll. The three days of mourning fix a public mark. The inquiry Tinubu ordered is the document that will have to reconcile the minister's first number with the 25 names now on the air force list, and say why an aircraft that left Benin City did not reach Lagos.