President John Mahama promises a complete investigation

Ghana president John Mahama promised a complete investigation into the Wednesday helicopter crash that killed two government ministers and six other people.

Defense Minister Edward Omane Boamah and the Minister of Sciences and Technology Ibrahim Murtala Muhammed, 50, were one of the people killed when a military plane crashed in the central region of Ashanti.

In a television address at the nation, Mahama said that the accident represented “personal loss” for him.

“I have shared a link with many of those who died. Our nation is in mourning,” he said.

The Z9 helicopter, carrying three crew members and five passengers, went down to a dense forest while flying from the capital, Accra, to the city of Obuasi for an event to tackle illegal extraction. There were no survivors.

The bodies of the eight deceased were recovered from the accident site and samples were sent to South Africa for the identification and forensic analysis.

Ghana’s national security suboordinator and former Minister of Agriculture Alhaji Muniru Mohammed was also among the dead, with Samuel Sarpong, vice-president of the National Democratic Congress Party.

State funeral will be held on August 15 for the victims, AFP reported.

The authorities did not confirm the cause of the accident, but Mahama confirmed that the flight data and the cockpit voice recorders had been recovered and that the Ghana armed forces had “launched a complete and transparent investigation”.

The Ghana Meteorological Agency had planned unusually cold time for August, with recent rains and light showers causing misty conditions in many forest areas. Local farmers near the accident site reported a morning fog while the helicopter stolen above.

An eyewitness told the BBC that the helicopter was flying to an “unusually low altitude” and that time was bad.

He said he heard the sound of the passing helicopter, followed by a “strong sound” and then “blow”.

“It was then that I realized that the helicopter had exploded. So I rushed to the place to see if I could find survivors,” he said.

The farmer said that when he arrived at the scene, there was “no one to save”.

It is the deadliest of three distinct emergency incidents involving Ghana Air Force helicopters in recent years.

In 2020, a Ghana Air Force Harbin Z9 helicopter made an emergency landing near Tamale airport, and last year, another Ghana Air Force helicopter made an emergency landing in Bonsukrom in the West region of Ghana.

Many Ghanaians are shocked by the news and still find it difficult to reconcile with the news. The images allegedly showing that the charred remains of the helicopter circulated on social networks.

President Mahama suspended all his activities planned for the rest of the week and said three days of mourning from Thursday.

The country’s flags fly in half-mast.

The crew members were appointed the squadron chief Peter Bafemi anal, the manin-manin Twum-Ampadu and Sergeant Ernest Addo Mensah.

Boamah served under the previous government of Mahama as Minister of Communications and before that, he was Minister of the Environment. As Minister of Defense, he approached a jihadist activity that was preparing at the northern border of Burkina Faso.

In 2022, an NGO based in France, a promdiation, said that his research has shown that jihadist groups had recruited between 200 and 300 young Ghanaians.

Violence in the region has also increased, fearing that jihadists are trying to exploit the municipal fights between rival communities in northern Ghana.

Boamah’s book, a peaceful man in an African democracy, on former president John Atta Mills, was to go out later in the year.

Muhammed was at the forefront of the battle against illegal gold extraction, which destroyed the environment and contaminated the rivers and the lakes.

Protests against practice, known locally as Galamsey, culminated during the Mahama race at the presidency last year.