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| A Chinook Helicopter |
No organized rescue effort was arranged
within a time frame that would have meant anything to the victims of the crash.
However, it is clear that the control tower knew something had gone wrong and
notified the Airport Commandant. Contradictory reports describe either a small
Air Force fixed wing aircraft or Bristow helicopter being dispatched to the
canal area to pin down the location of the aircraft. One account says the
location could not be confirmed while another says it was confirmed.
A small
group of civilians and Air Force personnel apparently made their way several hours
later to a point close to the scene but had to abandon their efforts because
“it was too dark” and “the swamp was too deep”. It would be better they
thought, to try again in the morning! Meanwhile, officers in key command
positions wined and dined at the Officers Mess at Ikeja Cantonment
commemorating the end of the Squash Tournament. It would be several hours
before they knew something was amiss.
At about 8 pm, Lt. Colonel Kayode Are,
one of the Directing Staff at the Command and Staff College in Jaji, placed a
long distance call to his course mate in Lagos, Lt. Colonel Owoye Azazi, CO of
the Intelligence Group at the Lagos Garrison to get information about the
crash. Azazi had not heard anything. (Azazi, later a Chief of General Staff as Lt.
General and therafter, NSA to former
President Goodluck Jonathan himself later died in a naval helicopter crash
somewhere in the creeks of Nembe, Bayelsa state alongside the then Kaduna State
governor, Patrick Yakowa on 15th Dec. 2015 under suspicious
circumstances). He then contacted some colleagues to find out if there was
truth to rumors that a plane had gone down. None of these officers knew what
was going on. Azazi, therefore, placed a call to Captain Al Mustapha, Chief
Security Officer to Lt. General Sani Abacha, who was at that time Chief of
Defence Staff. It was Mustapha that confirmed that a plane carrying students
from the CSC at Jaji had indeed crashed “somewhere behind Festac”. However, no
orders were forthcoming from Abacha on whether or how to respond and it was not
even clear whether the C-in-C, General I Babangida was aware or if aware, had
ordered anything done to respond.
Back in 1992 when I first investigated
this story through some Air Force contacts, I was informed that Azazi initially
assumed a “massive rescue operation” must be going on although it is not clear
who he might have thought would be carrying it out. So he got dressed anyway
and drove to the area around the Festac Village to see for himself. By now it
was around 11 pm and pitch dark. There was no sign of activity. When he
returned home, at about midnight, his Garrison Commander, Major Gen. Adisa had
called, having just heard of it himself. Thus, he returned the call. Adisa
ordered that they both take off the next morning by 5.30 am – 12 hours after
the crash - to resume the search. It was around midnight that the first
stirrings of a coordinated mid-level tri-service response were noticeable.
Therefore, early on Sunday morning,
General Adisa, Commodore Akhigbe, Lt. Col Azazi and Captain Deinde Joseph set
off for the Air Force base. There they were told that the plane crashed a few
minutes after take off. They were also briefed that a fixed wing aircraft had
taken off shortly before dark on reconnaissance, but could barely locate the
site of the crash. The group left the Air Force Base at Ikeja and headed first
for Festac Village, but eventually found their way to the section of the Ejigbo
canal closer to the Cantonment. As previously noted, some local inhabitants and
air force personnel had already crossed the canal through the swamp to the crash
site much earlier. The environment was difficult and investigators had to wade
in it with muddy water up to their navels. From the appearance of things it
seemed evident that the only hope for survival would have required immediate
response. Unless rescue got there within the first hour with appropriate
equipment, it didn’t seem likely that anyone had a chance. With the plane
overloaded and only few using seat belts, most were crushed against one other,
luggage and all sorts of metal objects. Some likely died from crush injuries,
some certainly drowned, and others certainly suffocated, trapped inside the
depressurized, airless Hull. There were reports of scribbled notes by some of
the survivors, indicating that they survived the initial impact. As the day
progressed, some area boys arrived and tried to ransack and steal items from
the dead. They were driven off.
On Sunday, the first day of recovery,
access into body of the aircraft was very difficult. There were initial
suggestions to use a chain saw but this was deferred out of fear of fire
outbreak because of the proximity to aviation fuel. Gaining access was,
therefore, fairly slow and crude, inch by inch. The first corpse out was of a
civilian, whose body was herniating almost outside the main frame of the
aircraft. For many more hours a lot of effort was made before recovery workers
got into the mass of bodies, most of which were pushed towards the front of the
aircraft deep inside water. That day only 27 bodies were recovered. They were
pulled out, loaded into canoes two at a time, brought to the edge of the swamp,
carried to the canal edge, ferried across in boats again and then carried to
the vehicle park before being taken to the mortuary.
The horrendous experience of that first
day provoked some feverish contacts in the Army hierarchy. On Monday, the Head
of the Lagos Garrison Intelligence group reportedly spoke with the US Defence
Attaché about the possibility of sending Chinook Helicopters to help. However,
the rather curious response of the Nigerian Army High Command – as communicated
by the Military Assistant to Lt. General Salihu Ibrahim, then Chief of Army
Staff, was that for reasons of national pride a request for foreign help was
not appropriate. In fact the Army HQ had to be talked out of immediately
assembling another course for the Staff College. The details of how “national
pride” became a reason to delay recovery of our fallen heroes at that stage are
best explained by those involved – and those they were reporting to at higher
levels i.e. Generals Abacha and Babangida.
Abacha is now dead and cannot defend
himself but his relationship with Babangida when Abacha was the CDS was, to say
the least, complex. There are accounts that money for defence needs was never
guaranteed to arrive at operational levels when released by government through
normal channels. I even read a newspaper story that Babangida at one point
actually passed money directly to agitated unit commanders and peace-keeping
troops instead of passing it through the Ministry of Defence. According to this
report, the common joke amongst lower level officers back then, when talking
about defence appropriations, was "Sani
ya chi”. If true, then it might explain why a US government grant for the
refurbishment of C-130s released in early 1992 may not have made it to the
aircraft. All of this, in any case, was occurring in the setting of the
deliberate deconstruction of the Air Force following the alleged involvement of
some Air Force officers in the so-called Vatsa conspiracy of 1985.
Let’s go back to our story. A retired
Air Force officer told this writer a few years ago that Brigadier General Akilu
was also contacted about the need for foreign military heavy lift Chinook
Helicopters. I have not spoken to Akilu to confirm, but this source says he
graciously gave the go ahead for the Recovery Team to contact the CIA Station
Chief as a backchannel. Along with General Adisa and Col. Azazi, the group
allegedly took a ride in the CIA man’s boat from Victoria Island to Ejigbo.
Further contacts obviously took place at a higher level but nothing eventually
came of this initiative.
In one of his columns, a respected
journalist, Remi Oyeyemi wrote that: “it is on record that less than an hour of
the crash, the British government offered to rescue the victims and the offer
was turned down by IBB. It is also on record that the U.S. government informed
the IBB administration that they had a ship on the high seas very close to
Nigeria that could be on the scene within few hours of the crash to help in the
rescue effort. It was turned down by IBB.” [ http://nigeriaworld.com/columnist/oyeyemi/070802.html ]
I have no independent verification at
this time that this specific communication occurred; neither do I have any that
it did not. The truth will certainly come out when British and American
diplomatic archives of that era are eventually declassified and/or when General
Babangida publishes his memoirs. What seems clear from publicly available
information though is that at the time such contacts were being made the issue
was not rescue (i.e. saving lives that are in imminent danger of being lost).
It was recovery (i.e. retrieving corpses and damaged equipment) – although the
countries involved in these alleged conversations with the government certainly
had the capacity for emergency night-time rescue of at least a few of the
victims at the back of the plane if invited early enough. It is also evident
that for misguided reasons, the Army High Command was not eager for foreign
military assistance. In fact it comes across like the story of the disabled man
whose child fell into an old well inside his compound but was too proud to ask
his neighbor for a long stick that might save the child, so he pretended all
was well; but then turned around later to invite his neighbours for the
funeral. The truth is that if national pride was really an issue, we would have
been building our own planes, maintaining them regularly, following technical
guidelines in using them, and we would certainly have had the capability to
respond quicker and more effectively to such a disaster. In battlefield
conditions it would have required a theater nuclear weapon to kill that many
Majors and Lt. Cols. in one go.
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| the crash site |
In addition to superstitious fear of the
dark, and absence of night-time riverain operational training and equipment,
the other factor was that in the security environment of 1992, Commanders were
very unwilling to give orders to move soldiers for any but the most routine
reasons, for fear of being accused of planning a coup. Why else – aside from a
Squash championship, the absence of an early warning system and pre-designated
first responder - would a military plane crash into a known canal within a few
miles of Ikeja Cantonment, Ojo Cantonment, the Naval Barracks at Ojo and Apapa
and the Ikeja Air Force Base and yet be marooned for so long? One is at a loss
for words.
Back to 1992; hamstrung on one hand by
lack of any sort of tactical or strategic indigenous military capacity for
serious rescue and recovery in a marine environment, and on the other by the
bizarre unwillingness of the High Command to get foreign military assistance,
Azazi, Adisa and others on the ground decided on their own initiative to
approach a locally based foreign company called Westminster Dredging. One of
their senior expatriate staff inspected the accident scene and suggested the
idea of felling trees and placing ramps to form a walkway in the swamp from the
other bank to the crash site. The ramp was used for the first few days before
nets were eventually hooked under helicopters to ferry the last group of bodies
across. By the time the pilot, co-pilot and flight engineer were recovered from
the cockpit, deep inside the swamp, it was clear that all corpses had been
moved out.
Meanwhile, the government eventually
contracted a German company, Julius Berger for help. But by the time the
company got to the crash site, all the bodies were already recovered through
the assistance of Westminster Dredging. What was left was the recovery of the
parts of the ill-fated plane – conceivably beyond the technical capacity of the
Army’s Engineering Corps. Further verification of corpses was made before they
were then transferred from the morgues in Lagos to Abuja. It was not until
Tuesday September 29, 1992, four days after the crash, that His Excellency the
President, Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces,
General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida visited the scene of the disaster,
inspecting it from the safety and remoteness of a helicopter circling above.
Victims of the crash were interred at a
mass burial with “full military honors”, in Abuja on October 5, 1992. At the
funeral, General Babangida described the air crash as "a calamity,
shocking in its impact and devastating in its finality……Our nation had reposed
great hope in them as future leaders of the armed forces……" Meanwhile the
first lady, Maryam Babangida, wearing an immaculate white outfit, walked
around, solemnly expressing condolences to grieving widows, all in dark
outfits.
ACCIDENT
INVESTIGATION
When NAF 911 crashed, an investigating
panel was reportedly set up under Rear-Admiral Elegbede. To this day, its
report has never been formally released to the public.
Although the NAF 911 investigation was
led by a Naval Officer in 1992, it never saw the light of day and there was no
opportunity for public input. Even during the Oputa panel hearings when widows
of the C-130 victims petitioned for their unpaid benefits and requested for the
report, a hasty rapprochement was reached with the Ministry of Defence to pay
them, but no word was said on the release of the report. More recently, the
investigative report into the Ikeja Cantonment Munitions Disaster of January 2002,
which the President promised to release, has not been publicly released.
WHAT
CAUSED THE CRASH OF NAF 911?
As noted above, no
official report has ever been released to the public in Nigeria even though all
concerned are aware of the importance of such reports in preventing future
incidents and allowing grieving families and friends come to terms with their
loss. No one resigned or was fired from their jobs as a result either.
Obviously, going by the technical specifications of the manufacturer, the plane
was grossly overloaded with individuals although one does not have access to
information about the true take off weight.
In a 2015 chat with The Interview, Gen.
Ibrahim Babangida disclosed that the aircrsft was not in a good condition to
fly in the first place due to maintenance and fly hours issues. On the report
of the investigation conducted into the crash, he was quoted to have said that “It was
investigated. It was reported. But you guys (Press) had a mindset. Certain
people had a mindset; nobody was interested in the report. But it was
investigated. What happened in sum total was that the aircraft should not have
been flying. There are mandatory stages, number of hours and maintenance. All
those things that are mandatory were not there.” When
he was asked on what happened to the people who authorized the plane to fly on
that ill-fated day, Babangida said there was no penalty meted out, adding, “They ought to have been punished. I know
that blame was apportioned. I wouldn’t know about the punishment. We
investigated; we even apportioned blame but no penalty. That is the Nigerian
factor.”
However, in searching various
international aviation disaster databases, I came across an entry which
categorically states that NAF 911 crashed as a result of FUEL CONTAMINATION. In
proceeding to discuss the issue, it should be noted that the Nigerian
government has never explained why (in its view) the plane crashed 25 years
ago, leaving room for all sorts of speculation. One is left with nothing to
evaluate except information which is available to the rest of the world but not
inside Nigeria to Nigerians about a Nigerian mishap.
When I came across the NAF 911 entry
at www.planecrashinfo.com/1992/1992-42.htm , I
contacted Mr. Richard Kebabjian, an international aviation archivist about the
case of the Nigerian C-130. He sent me this email:
“The
four-engine turboprop transport crashed in a swamp, killing all 152 persons
aboard. Except for four civilians, the victims were military personnel, mostly
Nigerian, including three Air Force crewmen, but also from Ghana, Tanzania,
Zimbabwe and Uganda. The accident occurred about three minutes after the
aircraft had taken off from Murtala Muhammed Airport, serving the capital city,
on an internal flight to Kaduna. Two of its power plants had malfunctioned
initially, followed by a third, possibly as the pilot-in-command was attempting
to ditch the C-130 in a canal, with the resulting crash occurring around dusk
and in clear weather conditions. Fuel contamination was mentioned as the cause
of the multiple engine failure.”
What
about deliberate fuel contamination?
There are no publicly available
materials on this possibility – which would be criminal anyway. There is also
no information whatsoever that such a possibility was considered in Nigeria
although press reports and even soldiers at the time did carry such unproven
rumors about sabotage – necessitating a denial and word of caution by the
Commandant of the Command and Staff College at that time – Lt. Gen. Joshua N.
Dogonyaro. One is, therefore, not in a position to comment further. But if this
is what transpired, such characters should ordinarily be apprehended, tried
under due process and executed if found guilty of mass murder.
CONCLUSION:
SEARCH, RESCUE and RECOVERY
As a young Youth Corper at the Brigade
of Guards back in 1982/83, 20 years ago, I was involved in organizing a major
coordinated Air, Land and Sea Rescue and Casualty Evacuation military exercise
in the Lagos area which involved the Army, Navy, Air Force, Police, Red Cross
as well as the National Orthopedic Hospital at Igbobi. Reports were submitted
to the Army Headquarters. We even organized a seminar in Battle field medicine,
tactical and strategic aero medical evacuation using detailed reports of the
British experience in the Falklands. And yet, some of the young officers who
helped me put it together died right there in the Lagos area in the crash of
NAF 911 and were left in the swamp for at least 16 hours before recovery
efforts – enabled by foreign companies - began. Why? In Nigeria there is no
concern for the sanctity of human life and no follow-through to good ideas.
There seems to be a kind of dysfunctional mental constipation about applying
ourselves - except when it concerns expropriating money from public coffers.
The National Emergency Management Agency
(NEMA) says a contingency plan for disaster management now exists – elements of
which they claim were activated when the EAS aircraft crashed in Kano recently.
One can only hope that such papers and plans will actually be read and that
appropriate mechanisms for its implementation – at all levels - will be put in
place, tested regularly through exercises, and adequately funded by the
National Assembly. Let it be that NAF 911 did not go down on September 26, 1992
in vain.
May their souls rest in peace.
Nowa Omoigu
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