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Abuja — Seven people died when a military plane crashed into a house in northern Nigeria on Saturday, killing everyone on board, the air force and disaster management officials said.

The Dornier-228 had set off from a military airfield in the city of Kaduna at 06:45, bound for the capital Abuja, air force spokesperson Air Commodore Dele Alonge said. “Though no casualty was recorded on ground, there were no survivors among the passengers on board the aircraft,” he said.

He said the number of dead was not yet clear but a spokesperson for the National Emergency Management Agency said that “four crew members – including two engineers — and three other passengers were on board”.

Firefighters were battling to stop the blaze spreading to other nearby buildings, he added.

Air force chief Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar launched an investigation into the cause and aborted an official visit to the southern city of Port Harcourt to visit the crash site and families of the victims.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country of more than 170 million people, has seen a series of deadly air disasters – civilian and military — that have claimed hundreds of lives in recent years.

Earlier this month a helicopter crashed into a lagoon in Lagos, killing six, including the American pilot, while a Nigerian military helicopter crashed in July last year in northeastern Nigeria, killing two of the three people on board. — AFP