The helicopter crash in which General Francis Ogolla died, along with nine other soldiers, on Thursday April 18, is the fifth helicopter crash experienced by the Kenya Defense Forces (KDF) in a year. Which raises many questions.
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With our correspondent in Nairobi, Gaëlle Laleix
According to the Aviation Safety Network, which monitors traffic around the world, the Kenyan Defense Forces have lost twelve aircraft since 2012. The conjunction of several factors explains these numerous accidents, according to Major-General Charles Mwanzia, former director of the KDF intelligence and pilot. The first, according to him: the diversification of the fleet which makes maintenance complex.
The KDF has French Puma, European Fennec, Russian MI17 and American UH 1M. All sold with maintenance contracts under bilateral cooperation agreements. “ Often these machines are old and reconditioned », explains Charles Mwanzia. The UH 1M model which crashed Thursday April 18 for example with ten soldiers on board, including the number one in the Kenyan army, dating from the Vietnam War.
Another problem, the creation in 2020 of a National Aviation Department which brings together military and civil aircraft, while “ maintenance requirements have nothing to do with it », Specifies Charles Mwanzia. Finally, the overwork of pilots is pointed out by a source from the Ministry of Defense in the columns of the Standard. “ Our political elites want to travel throughout the country by helicopter and impose very long flight hours “, he explains. In July, a helicopter carrying the Secretary of Defense also crashed in West Pokot. Further back in time, in 2012, Defense Minister George Saitoti he also died in a crash.