Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Adesola Amosu, has raised the alarm at the rate the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) is losing its pilots to plane crashes in the ongoing military operations in the North-East.

In less than two months, in Adamawa State alone, three aircraft belonging to the NAF had crashed, killing all crew members in some of the cases. In one case, the aircraft crew and two pilots are still missing since September. That was after the one that crashed in Bama, Borno State, killing the pilot and his assistant and leaving the other crew member with serious injuries.

However, Amosu told journalists after decorating 35 new Air Commodores in Abuja, yesterday, that NAF will still give effective cover to ground troops in the ongoing operations. Said he:

“Today is a day of mixed celebration. While we are still standing, mourning the death of our colleagues that lost their lives during the unfortunate helicopter incident, we have to consider elevating senior officers so that the service expected by all to be rendered to the nation can continue.

"We still have a lot of dedicated pilots and officers fighting in the North-East; we need to have this opportunity to celebrate them equally. He refused to admit that the two helicopters that were involved in the crash were due to their aged status."

According to Amosu, “When it comes to aircrafts, the issue of age, is not under focus, you must focus on the serviceability status.

"You could have an old aircraft today that is still being effectively used for war. Your maintenance schedule, your maintenance culture matters.

“If you give it the best of maintenance, sometimes an aircraft that is even 20 years old may be air worthy than the ones that are just about 10 years old. It depends upon the maintenance approach and the culture that you have developed over the years.

"I want to assure you that NAF is to provide very safe platform of flying and then we are very conscious of the need to be efficient even in terms of the delivery of the air power, to support our ground forces.”

The CAS also faulted the story going the round that there had been cases of the Air Force officers dropping ammunition on the ground troops in the counter-insurgency operation.

“We have effective communication between the services, so those stories are not true. We don’t have one single event where we have to drop ammunition on our own armed forces. We are very careful, it is better you don’t drop ammunition than to drop it on your own armed forces,” he explained.

•Adapted from National Mirror. Photo shows Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Adesola Amosu.