No papers on Saitoti chopper test
The director of Aviation Safety, Captain Joe Mutungi at the inquiry on August 8, 2012. Photo/JENNIFER MUIRURI
No record exists showing a pre-shipment inspection of the helicopter that killed Cabinet Minister George Saitoti, a witness said on Wednesday.
The chopper is said to have been inspected in South Africa in August 2011 and locally in January 2012 but Mr Nicholas Muhoya Ngatia said he could not ascertain whether police acquired a new or a secondhand machine.
He was giving evidence in the inquiry into the Eurocopter helicopter crash that also killed assistant minister Orwa Ojodeh, two police pilots and two (police) bodyguards.
Mr Ngatia told the commission of inquiry that Eurocopter footed flight and other bills for a Kenya Civil Aviation Authority flight safety inspector who is said to have inspected the aircraft but claimed he had “no proof documenting the transactions.”
The civil aviation Air-worthiness manager said when he was commissioning (by phone) Mr Kingsley Ogaya to check the helicopter, he was coincidentally at the manufacturer’s workshop in South Africa on a different mission. He added that the helicopter was taxied for registration purposes.
“He was there about two days before our conversation but there were no written instructions commissioning him to carry out the inspection,” he said.
When pressed by the commission to say on whose behalf he was acting, Mr Ngatia said he could not recall.
During cross-examination by a lawyer for the late Internal Security minister’s family, Mr Fredrick Ngatia, the witness said the aircraft was left at the Eurocopter workshop for four months after which it was brought to Kenya, but he did not inspect it.
Mr Ngatia said he was not sure about a second airworthiness inspection but was told it was carried out at Wilson Airport by Everett Aviation- representatives of Eurocopter.
He added that the first inspection at the source was for registration while the second inspection was for compliance with the airworthiness code.
The witness said he saw nothing peculiar in the one month period between the order and delivery of the chopper.
The lawyer, however, said an expert had informed him that the normal “lead time” for order and purchase took 12 to 18 months.
