“Only The Rotor Was Damaged” – Police Denies Helicopter Crash In Bauchi

The Nigerian Police Force has declared that its helicopter was not involved in a crash in Bauchi State but rather had troubles landing due to poor visibility.

The Force Public Relations Officer, CP Frank Mba who spoke on the matter on Thursday said when the helicopter which took off from Abuja arrived in Bauchi, there was no light on the runway.

He added that the pilot tried to communicate with the control tower but nobody was there to respond after which he had to proceed to control landing during which process the tail rotor of the aircraft was damaged.

Mba was reacting to an earlier report in a statement by the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) which revealed that a Bell 429 helicopter which belongs to the Nigerian Police crashed at the Bauchi airport around 7.30pm on the evening of Wednesday, 26th January.

The AIB report also said some of the six persons on board sustained some degrees of injury.

But the Police spokesperson said the incident happened on Thursday morning, no injury occurred to those onboard, and only the rotor of the aircraft which hit the branch of a tree was damaged with no major damage to the plane itself.

He said: “Our plane did not crash. We had a controlled landing in Bauchi. The chopper departed Abuja and got into Bauchi at about 7am on Thursday.

“And incidentally the runway lights were off. So visibility was an issue. They hovered around the airport hoping that somebody would turn-on the light.

“They tried to reach them on the communication set, nobody was on the control tower and at the end of the day they had no choice but to do a control landing. And they landed safely.

“The only thing that happened is that very close to where they landed the tail rotor hit a branch of a tree. So the only damage they had was to the tail rotor.

“And there were six persons onboard and nobody was injured. And there was no major damage to the plane”.

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