A Nigerian Newspaper on Thursday reported that the helicopter that killed a Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Police, Haruna John and three other senior police officers in Jos on Wednesday was a faulty one.
The paper quoted witness accounts as saying the chopper took off from the Jos Prison field with indications that something was wrong with it as it headed to Abuja. While flying away, the helicopter drastically lost altitude, and then smoke oozed out of it before it burst into flames and crashed in Kabong, a residential area at Gada Biyu, Jos North.
Resident Iliya John said “We usually see helicopters going round the city almost every day, but this morning we saw this one flying in an abnormal way and we all became alert and we started heading for safety…it was going so low that whoever sees it could tell that something was amiss, in fact people first started coming out and pointing at the way it was flying so low, it was not as the normal ones that we see every day.”
“People were even following the aircraft to see where it was going to land because they noticed that it had mechanical problem.” another witness, Joseph Audu added.
Senator Hadi Sirika, who served as pilot in the Nigeria Police Force, told journalist that “There are several possible causes, if there is no brief you can’t really fathom what happened but he insisted that the crashed chopper was new.

jp philips: Police IG procures chopper for the police force.

Police IG approves millions for maintenance of the chopper,

the new chopper kills the DIG in a fatal crash,

corruption is getting us somewhere

texazzpete: A helicopter may have developed a technical malfunction in flight...that should not be construed as being 'faulty' (which implies a known fault). It should not also be construed as being an inherently 'nigerian' thing.

American F-22s have developed malfunctions in air. Space Shuttle challenger exploded seconds after take off. A state of the art Air France plane went down off the coast of Brazil after the plane stalled. The reason was a faulty air-speed indicator.

Let's step away from this knee-jerk criticism until we have FACTS to back them up.

blacksta:

I totally agree - but lets bring it home to the Nigerian context. An eye witness claimed a fault had developed before the take of the bird. Generally Nigerians have a lack lustre attitude when it comes to maintanance hence the reason i am not surprised.

texazzpete: A helicopter may have developed a technical malfunction in flight...that should not be construed as being 'faulty' (which implies a known fault). It should not also be construed as being an inherently 'nigerian' thing.

American F-22s have developed malfunctions in air. Space Shuttle challenger exploded seconds after take off. A state of the art Air France plane went down off the coast of Brazil after the plane stalled. The reason was a faulty air-speed indicator.

Let's step away from this knee-jerk criticism until we have FACTS to back them up.

Beaf:

The bolded is a careless embellishment of the story.

There is no place in the article where that is stated, rather eyewitnesses realised there was a problem soon after it took off, because it was flying so low and at a point, had smoke pouring out of the engine.

blacksta:
" The way the aircraft took off after the state Police Commissioner Emmanuel Ayeni bid farewell to the DIG clearly showed it had some technical problem,” an official who was at the take-off place said, but declined to be named because he was not authorised to speak. "

http://saharareporters.com/news-page/how-faulty-police-chopper-killed-dig-3-others-dailytrust

blacksta:


" The way the aircraft took off after the state Police Commissioner Emmanuel Ayeni bid farewell to the DIG clearly showed it had some technical problem,” an official who was at the take-off place said, but declined to be named because he was not authorised to speak. "

http://saharareporters.com/news-page/how-faulty-police-chopper-killed-dig-3-others-dailytrust

1luvkipsus: Untill ysday,i nva knew that all the rickety police choppers making noise abt in abuja &its environs actually carry high ranking officers like a DIG.i actually thought its the rank&file dat are just playing around.God forbid!!

Calradised: RIP John Haruna, may your soul rest in peace
what pains me d most about dis is that it could have been prevented if we had believed the prophet of God and prayed with him
he said that this would happen before it did
and it was even reported in the tribune on the 1st February
here's the link:
http://www.tribune.com.ng/index.php/news/35343-nigerians-urged-to-pray-to-avert-plane-crash
[b]
[b]Nigerians urged to pray to avert plane crash
Written by Shola Adekola, Lagos
Wednesday, 01 February 2012
The pastor in charge of Synagog[/b[/b]]ue Church of All Nations, Prophet T.B Joshua, has called on Nigerians to pray fervently to God to avert a looming air disaster in the country.

The man of God made the appeal while revealing a prophecy God showed him concerning the aviation sector during a Sunday service.

The pastor, while making the prophecy, was said to have explained that the purported crash would have nothing to do with either pilot error or aircraft problem but that of security problem.

According to Joshua, the purported crash, if not averted, would involve one of the country’s local flights.

Prophet Joshua urged Nigerians to pray that the country did not experience such a disaster, which he said, might claim lives of many government officials.

He, however, advised anybody who wanted to travel by air to recite Psalm 91 before boarding any aircraft for safe landing.