My Dad is one of the people:
Five senior executives and their pilot escaped with their lives yesterday when their helicopter crashed in the Aberdares range in central Kenya.
The Kenya Wildlife Service helicopter – a Bell 206 Long Ranger – was at treetop height and being steadied for landing in the remote KWS post at Shamata, in Nyandarua, when the accident happened.
The helicopter’s stabilising rear propeller appeared to lock, and the craft began to spin on its own axis.
As the pilot fought to stop the spin, the helicopter suddenly dipped then plummeted to the ground, landing with a loud crash on its side and sending up a cloud of earth and dust.
There was a moment of silence, broken by the screams of horrified onlookers, before KWS officers rushed forward.
They scrambled over the broken, white fuselage to open one of the doors and pull the shaken passengers and pilot to safety.
The passengers included Nation Media Group chief executive Wilfred Kiboro and KWS managing director Evans Mukolwe.
Others were Safaricom chief executive Michael Joseph, KenGen’s managing director Eddie Njoroge and KWS chairman Colin Church.
Mr Kiboro had nothing but praise for the KWS pilot, Capt Solomon Nyanjui.
“He was very calm and in control of everything,” he said.
Mr Kiboro said the accident had happened very quickly but the pilot had reacted within split seconds to achieve a safe landing.
And he added: “We thank God that we are alive.”
Capt Nyanjui later gave this dramatic account to Nation TV of his fight to control the craft:
“By the time we came to land I checked the wind direction as usual and everything was okay.
“But then I realised 10 feet to the ground my left pedal was not responding to my input.
“I tried reducing the power so that I come down safely. I tried to control the aircraft but it was very difficult.
“There was a small hill on the right side which hit the helicopter and there was nothing much I could do.
Asked to explain the cause of the crash, he replied: “What I think is that something happened to the right drive shaft to the tilter.”
Nation journalist Martin Telewa who saw the crash, commented: “It was around 12.20 pm when we saw the chopper wobble in the air just before it landed. It lost control as its propeller was not turning.”
The five passengers were on an inspection tour of the Rhino Ark fence project in the Aberdare National Park.
The fence is designed to contain wild animals, keeping them from neighbouring farms and to protect the forest, a water catchment area for Nairobi.
The party had flown to Shamata from Mweiga airstrip in Nyeri and were due to fly on to Gakoe in Thika.
Mr Mukolwe, Mr Church and Mr Joseph were, however, too shocked by the crash to continue the tour and were flown back to Nairobi by a private charter helicopter.
Mr Kiboro and Mr Njoroge completed their inspection of the fence at Shamata before cutting short their tour and returning to Nairobi at around 2pm in a police helicopter.
The crash-landing in the Aberdares comes only two months after a police helicopter carrying Vice-President Moody Awori and other VIPs, crash-landed in a field between Simba and Emali in Makueni, near the Mombasa-Nairobi highway.
No one was hurt in the accident which happened as Mr Awori and his team returned to Nairobi from a tour of the Coast.