Captain Paul Forjoe, a retired pilot and a senior aviation engineer with the Aircraft Accident and Incident Investigation and Prevention Bureau (AIB), has revealed that the Air Force helicopter that crashed on August 6, 2025, caught fire after the incident, and not before.
This was in response to a question he was asked after he had presented the committee’s report on Tuesday, November 11, 2025.
The retired military officer stated that the accident was caused by a sudden and powerful downdraft.
“The investigation determined that the accident was caused by the sudden loss of altitude and lift due to downdraft,” stated Captain Paul Forjoe.
He clarified that this sudden aerodynamic failure occurred without any corresponding pilot error or mechanical failure:
“This loss of altitude without change in power or pitch attitude is consistent with downdraft associated with changing environmental conditions over high terrain.”
When asked specifically if the aircraft caught fire before falling, he stated that the craft caught fire after it had crashed.
“There was no explosion before. The Z9 helicopter actually, its fuel tank is under where the passengers sit, and don’t forget, it was doing a flight to Obuasi and back. It wasn’t going to refuel in Obuasi… So, on impact, that is when the explosion took place.”
He said the committee looked for corroboration in arriving at the conclusion that the aircraft caught fire on impact, and not before the impact.
He added that the eye witnesses’ accounts tallied with what was discovered by the committee.
He further revealed the flight was originally scheduled to take off at 8:00 a.m. with an estimated flight time of about 50 minutes. However, due to poor weather conditions in Accra, Kumasi, and Obuasi, the captain delayed the departure. The helicopter eventually took off at 9:12 a.m.
“On the day of the flight, the visibility was much worse. Eyewitness accounts indicate it dropped to as low as 200 meters at some point.
”Weather in southern Ghana was poor on the day, which delayed departure for about an hour. In Accra, conditions were misty with visibility of about five to seven kilometers and very low clouds starting at only 700 to 1,100 feet above the ground,” he stated.
He added:”The weather deteriorated further along the route, with drizzle reducing visibility to about four kilometers and low clouds hovering between 600 and 900 feet. Only the Accra and Kumasi aerodrome weather reports were available to the pilots at the time, leaving them without formal weather information for that stretch of the flight.”
“The environmental conditions in the forest reserve — with its hilly and mountainous terrain — can create turbulence, downdrafts, and other hazardous phenomena.”
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
