Residents of Nassau Village in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, on Sunday had their peace disturbed when a jet belonging to the Nigerian Air Force crash landed in the area.
Noise from aircraft however is not strange to residents of the village, being one of the settlements that bordered the Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport.
But the Sunday experience was not only strange, it was a near-death experience for them.
One of the residents, who witnessed the accident, Ebube Onyedi, told our correspondents that they initially took the loud sound that characterised the crash for a bomb blast
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“The accident happened around some minutes to 11am this (Sunday) morning and it caused confusion in Nassau, which as you can see is one of the communities bordering the Abuja airport.
“Many of us ran out of our houses when we heard the explosion. It really caused so much panic, as initially, people thought it was a bomb blast,” he struggled to say while still catching his breath.
It started with a loud and unusual noise from the ill-fated aircraft, followed by a loud explosion and then billows of thick smoke and fire.
By the time it all subsided, seven souls have been lost.
The jet en route Minna in Niger State crashed close to the runway of the Abuja airport after reporting engine failure.
The plane was said to be on its way to Minna to rescue 27 students and 15 staff of Government Science College, Kagara, who were kidnapped on Wednesday.
As of the time our correspondents arrived the scene of the accident which was said to have occurred at about 11am, distraught residents who were watching rescue operations from a safe distance were telling stories of how it happened and how they were saved by luck.
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