Police, SSS confirms Ibadan spacecraft is a toy

The Nigerian Police and SSS have confirmed that the flying object that caused confusion in Ibadan is a toy as IBPulse.com singly, authoritatively and exclusively stated yesterday.

Speaking in company of the representatives of the Nigerian Police, SSS and Defence Corps,the Chairman, Ido local government of Oyo state, Professor Joseph Adeniyi Olowofela, described Nigerian Tribune's media report that an object crashed into the home of a resident as very unfortunate and misleading.

“What happened was that a man was playing with a toy with his son and the toy got lost only to be discovered by a neighbour and instead of searching for the owner of the toy, the neighbour kept it in his home for a week . And the next thing was to read on a newspaper that a spy object lost control and crashed into a resident home”, he said.

The owner of the quadcopter, Sunday Folayan, an Electronic engineer and the Vice President,Nigeria Internet Registration Association, also expressed shock at the reported crash. Folayan who is the owner of Skannet , a service provider company based in Ibadan.

He said: “The weight of the toy is 0.8 kilogram with the shape of an i-pad . It cannot run more than 15 minutes . It is not solar-panelled, but uses battery and a remote control .”

IBPulse.com was the first to positively identify the quadcopter as Walkera QR x350. He narrated how the device got missing on his personal blog.

He said: "Flashback to Sunday 22nd December 2013, my son and I decided to calibrate our new Walkera QR x350 quadcopter, hoping to get it ready for its maiden flight on boxing day. We coupled the various parts in the garden, charged the batteries and started calibrating the controls. It lifted gracefully, and hovered within the garden with a slight drift to the right. 

"My son thought it could crash into the wall, and advised that I should lift it up a bit to clear the wall. Mistake number One, as the quadcopter simply took to the skies, and then started drifted to the right, since it was not  calibrated, it did not hoover. Being an experienced chopper pilot, he asked for the controls, which I gave to him. He wanted to execute a turn, but the craft veered sharply to the left. Within one minute, we lost radio contact. 

"We raced down the road on foot, re-established radio contact, activated the homing function, waited 5 minutes but when nothing came, I just believed the worst may have happened. I took the pains to inform my neighbors, those with their ears to the ground, just in case they got any clue that the quadcopter may have crashed somewhere around. I did not inform the police."