Ghana’s Defence Minister Edward Omane Boamah, Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Ibrahim Murtala Muhammed, and six others were killed in a military helicopter crash, the chief of staff said.
Television station Joy News broadcast mobile phone footage from the crash scene showing smouldering wreckage amid a heavily forested area earlier in the day, before it was revealed that the Defence and Innovation ministers were among the dead on Wednesday.
The military says the helicopter took off Wednesday morning from the capital, Accra, towards Obuasi, a gold-mining area in the Ashanti region, but went off the radar.
The cause of the crash was not immediately known.
State media said the Z-9 helicopter is used as a utility helicopter, often used for transport and medical evacuation.
Ghana’s government described the crash as a “national tragedy”.
“The president and government extend our condolences and sympathies to the families of our comrades and the servicemen who died in service to the country. All flags are to fly at half-mast until further notice,” Chief of Staff Julius Debrah told reporters.
Who were the key figures killed?
Boamah was leading Ghana's defence ministry at a time when militant activity across its northern border in Burkina Faso had become increasingly restive.
While Ghana has so far avoided any spillover from the Sahel, unlike neighbours Togo and Benin, observers have warned of increased arms trafficking and of militants from Burkina Faso crossing the porous border to use Ghana as a rear base.
A medical doctor by training, Boamah's career in government included stints as communications minister during Mahama's previous 2012–2017 tenure.
Before that, he was the deputy minister for the environment.
Mahama was "down, down emotionally", Haruna Iddrisu, Ghana's education minister, told reporters outside the presidency after news broke of the crash.
Alhaji Muniru Mohammed, Ghana's deputy national security co-ordinator and former agriculture minister, was among the dead, along with Samuel Sarpong, vice-chairman of Mahama's National Democratic Congress party.
What was on their agenda?
As Ghana has pursued increased diplomacy with Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger – all ruled by juntas who have broken with the ECOWAS West African regional bloc – Boamah led a delegation to Ouagadougou in May.
He had been set to release a book titled A Peaceful Man in an African Democracy, about former president John Atta Mills, who died in 2012.
Wednesday’s crash was one of Ghana’s worst air disasters in more than a decade.
In May 2014, a service helicopter crashed off the coast, killing at least three people. In 2021, a cargo plane overran the runway in Accra and crashed into a bus full of passengers, killing at least 10 people.
