“I have directed the Nigerian Air Force to immediately commence a thorough investigation into the cause of the crash,” he added.

The air force did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The crash is ​one of Nigeria’s worst military ​aviation ⁠accidents in years — and the latest in a long history of such incidents. In the aftermath of those accidents, despite promises of an investigation, few details were released. Experts have regularly blamed poor maintenance of aircraft and operational failings.

In 2021, the leader of the Nigerian Army and 10 others were killed when a military aircraft crashed in northern Nigeria. An investigation into the cause of that accident was never released.

There have been more than a dozen air crashes over the last decade in Nigeria, according to estimates by local media.

In recent years, the air force has played an increasing role in counterterrorism missions against militant and jihadist groups in Nigeria. After a fatal military aircraft crash in 2022, Nigeria’s minister of defense at the time, Bashir Magashi, warned that such accidents risked weakening the force’s capacity to respond to rising threats.