wacheni zenyu, small planes crash even in your so called civilized world due to bad weather. Its just an accident just the same as a bus travelling to say western kenya can crash can cause fatalities

Wazua expert armchair and online qualified analysts.

So, what is the way forward to avoid recurrence of such tragedy? ama our work ends with analysis

Me I think they should postpone the flight when the weather is bad because we have no weather experts. One day Nguata Francis made me carry an umbrella to town. I looked like an idiot.

The Nation has established that Captain Barbara Wangeci, 28, radioed the control tower and was advised to land at JKIA from the Utawala side.

However, she was not familiar with the route as she had always landed at Wilson Airport, and so the control tower at JKIA promised to help her navigate the Aberdare Forest towards a fix position known as Avena, and onwards towards JKIA, where she was to land on runway 24.
Ms Wangeci was flying at 11,000ft (The aircontroller must have known this) when she turned towards the mountain as instructed. Satima, the highest peak of the Aberdares, stood in her way at 13,120ft, while Elephant Hill, where the plane crashed, towered over her at 12,815 feet. With the fog blinding her, Ms Wangeci did not realise she was flying towards an outcrop.

In order to comply with the new instructions, and despite the poor visibility, Ms Wangeci turned towards the left, and “that explains why the aircraft crashed at 9,500 feet since she had not started the descent, as instructed”.

All odds, therefore, were stacked against Ms Wangeci, and her fate and that of her passengers were sealed by the fact that the Cessna Caravan she was flying does not have a moving map display to give her the actual location and warn her of any nearby outcrops.

The reason the control tower at JKIA did not foresee this is among the clues crash investigators will be looking at. But, at Wilson, officials are categorical that this was a “clear case of CFIT”.

Details of the report are not known, but President Museveni later sacked Lt Gen Owoyesigire and Brig Moses Rwakitarate, the former Airforce Chief of Staff, reportedly based on that report.

Sources say it was an unprecedented catalogue of mistakes, inexperience and bad orders from commanders that could have been the most likely causes of the triple helicopter crashes. There are claims that the choppers switched from their original flight plan which would have seen them fly north of the mountain towards their destination in Wajir but instead flew south of the mountain leading them into thick fog.

A Kenyan newspaper also reported that contrary to well established international aviation rules and regulations, the pilots of Uganda’s three ill-fated Mi-24 attack helicopters that crashed in the Mt Kenya ranges were communicating in Luganda.

The newspaper also reported that the Kenyan aviation authority could hear UPDF soldiers as they communicated among themselves in Luganda – just minutes before the crash. They crashed after 30minutes into their flight before realising there was bad weather ahead.

In a move to avoid poor visibility, the pilots are said to have gained height and flew far above the required altitude, the Kenyan newspaper reported. The choppers were flying at 11,000 feet when they came down.
Other Kenyan media reported that after realising that the chopper pilots were heading straight into the mountain, a Kenyan pilot attempted to break into the military frequency to warn them of the dangers ahead but he was unable to get through.

That must been ages ago the weather man is quite right these days.

Read this





When M7s choppers crashed on Mt Kenya M7 formed a commission of inquiry



Air travel is well monitored with weather updates often predicted and given before the flight so weather is not a big issue. Human error is. That is why heads rolled in Uganda, heads should roll in Kenya too.