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The crash involved an American Airlines regional jet colliding midair with an Army helicopter.

The Justice Department said in a filing on Wednesday that the pilots of the Army Black Hawk helicopter, quote, failed to maintain vigilance.

The failure was a cause in fact and proximate cause of the accident.

The filing also laid a portion of the blame on the American Airlines pilots, but the airline maintains that their pilots acted according to all laws and standards, placing the blame entirely on the Army pilots and air traffic control.

The government has declared their intention to pay damages to the families of those lost in the incident.

The incident is just the latest in a years-long pattern, and hundreds of children remain missing from similar crimes over the past decade.

The assailants exchanged gunfire with local police officers before scaling the school's perimeter fence and carrying out the mass abduction.

Police and soldiers are now attempting to track the perpetrators through suspected escape corridors and forested areas.

The incident is just the latest mass kidnapping in Nigeria's northwest.

where armed criminal gangs, often referred to locally as bandits, have repeatedly targeted schools for ransom.