UPDATED: Nigerian Army finds wreckage of fighter jet a year after Boko Haram claimed it shot it down

The Nigerian Army has announced that it has found the wreckage of a fighter jet, a year after it was declared missing.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how the aircraft went missing during an operation against Boko Haram last April.

The terror group later released a video claiming it shot down an aircraft believed to be the alpha jet declared missing by the Nigerian Air Force.

The Boko Haram footage showed the wreckage of a plane, the charred fuselage bearing the phrase “NAF 475.”

A masked terrorist stood atop the wreckage and described the plane as “jet fighter of the Nigerian Air Force 475.” Later, two mangled corpses, supposedly the pilots, were shown in military fatigues.

“As you can see, this is the pilot of your aircraft, whom you sent to harm the servant of God,” the terrorist said in Hausa. “This is what God did to him. He fell from the sky, and if you do not repent this will be your reward.”

The army, however, said the video was ‘doctored,’ to give the false impression that the aircraft was shot down. At the time, a spokesperson of the Nigerian Air Force admitted the alpha jet may have crashed after losing contact with the radar in Borno State during the flight.

“Intelligence report gathered by the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) indicates that the Alpha Jet aircraft (NAF475) that went off the radar with 2 crew members on board on 31 March 2021 might have crashed,” he said.

He also accused Boko Haram of employing false propaganda, seeking to claim credit for what was obviously an air accident “that could have been caused by several other reasons; particularly at a time when the capability of the group to inflict mayhem has been significantly degraded by the Armed Forces of Nigeria.”

On Saturday, the army announced on its verified Facebook page that the wreckage of the jet had been recovered.

“Troops of Operation Desert Sanity on clearance patrol in Sambisa Forest, Borno State, have uncovered the wreckage of crashed Alpha Jet aircraft (NAF475) that went off the radar with 2 crew members on 31 March 2021. Further exploitation ongoing,” the army wrote.

NAF Plane Crashes

It has been generally agreed that Nigeria needs to re-tool, fund, and re-position its military, especially in the face of the spread of terrorism, but arguably, the more urgent concern is the manner in which Nigerian Air Force aircraft have been crashing from the skies.

In the last one year, the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) has lost at least four of its aircraft and several personnel due to air accidents.

At least 20 officers also died during these tragic incidents, including senior army officers.

February 2021: A military aircraft in Abuja that was bound for Niger State to search for kidnapped schoolchildren there crashed – killing all seven people on board.

March 2021: A fighter Alpha Jet belonging to the Nigerian Air Force in the insurgency-ravaged Borno State in North-east Nigeria went missing.

The Nigerian Army announced on Saturday that it has found the wreckage of the fighter jet a year after it was declared missing.

May 2021: A NAF passenger jet crashed near Kaduna International Airport. Eleven military officers, including the Chief of Army Staff, Ibrahim Attahiru, lost their lives in that mishap.

July 2021: Bandits shot down an air force plane in a rare case of a military jet being brought down by the outlawed gang. The pilot had finished a raid against kidnappers when he came under intense fire, the Nigerian Air Force said.

Flight lieutenant Dairo ejected and used “survival instincts” to avoid capture and find refuge in nearby settlements. The attack happened on the border of the northern Zamfara and Kaduna states.

Boko Haram

For more than a decade, Boko Haram has unleashed violent attacks in Nigeria’s northeast, in a worsening conflict that has also spilled into neighbouring Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

More than 30,000 people are estimated to have been killed and some 3 million forced from their homes.

But the insurgents have been degraded in Nigeria and reports suggest the group is now preoccupied with attacks on neighbouring West African countries.

Boko Haram was responsible for only 69 deaths in Nigeria in 2021, the lowest number of deaths by the group for a decade.

Abubakar Shekau, longtime leader of the armed group, reportedly committed suicide by detonating an explosives vest during a confrontation with Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) fighters in May 2021.

A recent report by the Global Terrorism Index said the attacks against Boko Haram by a rival terror group, ISWAP, and the counter-terrorism efforts of the Nigerian government and foreign military forces have significantly weakened Boko Haram’s impact in Nigeria.