ABUJA, Oct. 5 (Xinhua) -- A military aircraft carrying 25 passengers and seven crew members crashed near a local community in Nigeria's southwestern Ondo State on Monday, an official said.

Festus Keyamo, Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, said in a statement that the aircraft crashed near the Naval Base in Igbokoda, a riverine community in Ondo State.

Keyamo said search and rescue operations had commenced, noting that the "control and regulation of military aircraft are completely outside the authority of the Ministry of Aviation and the civil aviation authority."

In a separate statement, the Nigerian Air Force confirmed that the aircraft was a twin-engine turboprop rather than a helicopter as previously believed. The ATR-42 aircraft was on a routine mission from Benin, a city in southern Nigeria, to Lagos when the incident occurred, the Air Force said, adding that a rescue operation had been activated.

No casualties have been confirmed so far. Local media and witnesses initially reported that a helicopter was involved in the incident.

Witnesses told Xinhua that the Nigerian Navy's Forward Operating Base in the state had joined the ongoing rescue operation. ■

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