The President of the Alumni Association of the National Institute for Security Studies (AANIAS), Mike Ejiofor, has questioned the mission of the Nigerian Air Force aircraft that crashed in Ondo State.
Ejiofor expressed doubt that the aircraft was deployed for reconnaissance given the number of people reportedly on board.
Ejiofor, a former Director of the Department of State Services (DSS), suggested that the aircraft may have been used to convey passengers, noting reports that children were among those on board.
LEADERSHIP reports that the aircraft crashed in Ondo State on October 5, 2026, killing all 25 people on board, comprising 20 passengers and five crew members.
Speaking on Arise News on Wednesday, Ejiofor said the number of people aboard the aircraft raised questions about its possible operational assignment.
“I’m not in the Air Force. I don’t know how they operate, but I very much doubt if it was actually on an operation with that number of people if it’s on reconnaissance,” he said.
“If you have those number of people—I’m not ruling out the possibility—from Lagos to Benin to Lagos are not very serious operational areas, if you are talking of somewhere like Niger, Zamfara, in the North. We can say, yes, maybe they went in for an operation.
“But I believe abuse in our country, possibly go and convey these people using the Air Force aircraft to go to this place. Because I understand—we don’t know—I understand there were children inside, so they couldn’t have been on reconnaissance.”
Ejiofor also called for a broader investigation into military aircraft operations, saying the recurring crashes involving military aircraft had become “one too many.”
He urged the authorities to examine the maintenance history, age and operational condition of military aircraft, rather than limiting the investigation to the immediate cause of the Ondo crash.
“I think it’s becoming one too many—the incidents of air crashes involving the military. So I think the investigation should go, not the immediate cause of this, that should be looked into, but the frequent crashes of our military aircraft should be looked into.
“What is the state of maintenance of all these aircraft? How long have they been in service? What is the state of aircraft—we can’t continue to have—I think from records, from what I was reading, we’ve had over 10 crashes in the last 10 years. You remember the one that claimed the life of the Chief of Army Staff.
“So we should look into the general operations of the Air Force and look at their— I mean, it’s sad, very, very sad. So the government has taken the right initiative. It’s quite unfortunate, because this is the highest so far in military crashes of a number of casualties that was just recent, which is very sad,” he lamented.
Ejiofor further expressed concern over conflicting reports about the number of people aboard the aircraft.
He noted that 32 people were initially reported to have been on board before the Nigerian Air Force subsequently released a manifest listing 25 people, attributing the discrepancy to poor record-keeping.
“It goes again to the issue of data keeping. It should have been easier to, or simple, to get the manifest and know the number of people. But you know the way we keep records, my only surprise, there might be more people in the aircraft who were not contained in the manifest.
“So I think that is what is responsible for the disconnect—the Aviation Minister saying a different thing, and the Air Force, the Defense, saying another thing. But I think we should rely more on the manifest of the aircraft if they actually complied with that—the people in the aircraft, their names were contained there in the manifest. And it’s a sad situation that this simple record keeping can just have a conflict.”
On the difficulty in recovering the wreckage and victims, the former DSS director said the difficult terrain around the crash site had complicated the operation.
He stressed that recovering the aircraft’s black boxes would be critical to determining what happened before the crash.
“It’s the terrain. The terrain is very bad, and you’ll recall we had a case like that—I think in 2012—involving Dana Air where the aircraft dived into the deep, it was on a swamp, as to speak.
“So the terrain where this crash took place—and from what people have been saying, even though investigation has not concluded, is that the pilot managed to avoid areas to reduce the number of casualties at the risk of his own life and the life of others.
“So I think as the investigation goes on, we should be able to know what actually happened. But the fear is that, except the black boxes are recovered, the fear is that they lost contact, they lost signals from the aircraft as soon as it took off.”
Ejiofor said the proximity of a naval base and police station to the crash site should have enabled an immediate rescue response, but noted that the terrain presented a major challenge.
“I think nobody should be blamed for this, because if you also recall that it’s close to a naval base and police station, so rescue should have been immediate. But the terrain posed a very serious challenge.
“As we speak, the fuselage of the aircraft and others have not been recovered. So there’s no hope that there’s any life, because body parts were scattered. So it’s quite unfortunate, but let’s wait for the outcome.”
On reports of a deafening sound before the crash, Ejiofor said it was too early to conclude that an explosion occurred before the aircraft went down.
He said the sound could have resulted from the impact, although an explosion before impact could not be ruled out.
“For me, these are speculations. It’s possible the impact on crashing caused the deafening noise. But again, if you look at the situation analytically, that body parts were found, it’s also possible that there was an explosion before the impact, which led to disintegration and finding of body parts.
“So until the investigation is concluded, we can’t be specific on what actually caused whether it was an explosion in the air or the impact on the ground,” he said.
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