Nairobi Plane Crash and the worrying Air accident Statistics

An aircraft crashed at Nairobi’s Highrise estate near Wilson Airport shortly before 3pm Kenya Time on Saturday. According to Capital News there were four people on board who got? injured and were rushed to different Hospitals in Nairobi. But there was a conflicting report by Nation, which claimed that one person died while other two on board got injured. On twitter @edsamich responding to my question about the conflicting news said that? one person was confirmed dead.

Air Travel Safety

The increased number of plane accidents are worrying. For a long time safe way of traveling was by air but that is not the case anymore. The big question is why are there so many air accidents in the recent times. Does the problem lie with the pilots? Or is it the bad make of the planes?? This year alone the following accidents took place:

  • January 15 ? US Airways Flight 1549, an Airbus A320 ditches in the Hudson River just after taking off from LaGuardia Airport in New York City after engine failure due to multiple bird strikes, no fatalities.
  • February 7 ? A Manaus Aerot?xi Embraer EMB-110 Bandeirante crashes near Santo Ant?nio, Brazil killing 24 of the 28 aboard.
  • February 12 ? Colgan Air Flight 3407, a Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 flying from Newark Liberty International in New Jersey to Buffalo Niagara International Airport in New York crashes into a house in Clarence, New York at 10:17 pm local time; all 49 aboard the plane are killed, with one fatality on the ground.
  • February 25 ? Turkish Airlines Flight 1951, a Boeing 737-800 flying from Atat?rk Airport in Istanbul to Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam crashes in a field during final approach; of the 127 passengers and 7 crew on board, 9 are killed, 85 injured.
  • March 20 – Emirates Airline Flight 407, an Airbus A340-500 flying from Melbourne Tullamarine Airport in Melbourne to Dubai International Airport in Dubai suffers a tailstrike during take off; it returns to Melbourne Airport with no fatalities.
  • March 23 – FedEx Express Flight 80, a McDonnell Douglas MD-11 flying from Guangzhou, China crashes at Tokyo Narita International Airport, Japan; both the captain and the co-pilot of the plane are killed.
  • April 19 – CanJet Flight 918 is seized on the ground by an armed man who slipped through security checks at Sangster International Airport, Montego Bay, Jamaica; all passengers are released early on, but six crew members are kept as hostages for several hours before being freed unharmed.
  • June 1 – Air France Flight 447, an Airbus A330-203 flying from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to Paris, France, crashes in the Atlantic Ocean killing all 228 occupants, including 12 crew; bodies and aircraft debris are not recovered until several days later.
  • June 30 – Yemenia Flight 626, an Airbus A310-300 flying from Sana’a, Yemen to Moroni, Comoros, crashes into the Indian Ocean with 153 people aboard; one survivor ? a 12-year-old girl ? is found clinging to the wreckage.
  • July 13 – Southwest Airlines Flight 2294, a Boeing 737-300 from Nashville to Baltimore makes an emergency landing in Charleston, WV after a 14×17 inch hole opens in the skin of the fuselage at 34,000 feet, causing a loss of cabin pressure and oxygen masks to deploy; the plane lands safely with no injuries.
  • July 15 – Caspian Airlines Flight 7908, a Tupolev Tu-154, crashes 16 minutes after takeoff near Qazvin, Iran, killing all 153 passengers and 15 crew.
  • July 24 – Aria Air Flight 1525, an Ilyushin Il-62 skids off a runway in Iran, killing at least 17 with 136 survivors.
  • -source Wikipedia

Wilson Airport and the illegal Structures

The human encroachment on Wilson Airport poses a grave danger to the light planes using the Airport.? And it does not stop at that, the lives of human population around there are also at risk. In October last year Kenya Civil Aviation Authority gave? Kenya Airport Authority one year to improve the conditions of the Wilson Airport but the fact out there shows that nothing has been done so far.? According to the Aviation regulations Kenya Civil Aviation Authority have the powers to pull down the? illegal structures around the airport.

The problem at the moment is that there are powerful men and women including cabinet ministers behind the illegal allocations and when big men are involved in Kenya the authority can do nothing.? So in the first place I a wonder why we should have such authority in Kenya if their work is do nothing when the lives of the people are at risk.

There is also issue of the the top manager of KCAA, it seems the Government can not find ideal person to run the organization. That is why Mr Nicholas Bodo replaced Mr Chris Kuto, who retired, in an acting capacity as the director.

According to Nation

Mrs Chocho is said to have told the meeting that the authority was toothless and could not bring down the structures.

She cited the current lack of a director for the problem.

The government should stop playing political games with the lives of Kenyans. Either improve the conditions of the Airport or close it down and that should be done now, not tomorrow, not in two weeks

Kennedy Kachwanya1087 Posts

--- Kennedy Kachwanya is a technology blogger interested in mobile phones both smart and dumb, mobile apps, mobile money, social media, startups ecosystem and digital Savannah. New media must not forget the strength of old tech.

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