Saitoti copter ‘was repaired by an outsider’

What you need to know:

  • It also emerged that Eurocopter, the suppliers of the helicopter, may have short-changed the government by delivering an aircraft, which failed to meet the specifications in the tender bid.
  • Police Airwing chief engineer Johnson Mwangi Gathatu said the man who repaired the helicopter was not known to the police.
  • He said that the engineer was brought on board after the Eurocopter sanctioned engineer, a Mr Aristide, failed to unravel the cause of the stress signal on the aircraft’s control panel.

The helicopter that came down killing Internal Security minister George Saitoti and five others was repaired by an engineer at Wilson Airport two days before the crash, a commission of inquiring into the accident heard on Monday.

It also emerged that Eurocopter, the suppliers of the helicopter, may have short-changed the government by delivering an aircraft, which failed to meet the specifications in the tender bid.

Police Airwing chief engineer Johnson Mwangi Gathatu said the man who repaired the helicopter was not known to the police. (READ: Saitoti crash copter had 11 parts missing)

He told the commission chaired by Lady Justice Kalpana Rawal that the engineer was brought on board after the Eurocopter sanctioned engineer, a Mr Aristide, failed to unravel the cause of the stress signal on the aircraft’s control panel.

Mr Mwangi said the arrangement between Mr Aristide and the Wilson Airport-based engineer did not involve the police.

“It was a third party arrangement when Aristide failed to find a solution to technical problem,” he told the commission sitting at KICC in Nairobi. “I did not authorise him, it was their own arrangement.”

No records exist

He said no records existed to show the intervention was made but it was not strange as engineers consult each other throughout in the aviation industry.

“I saw him go into the cockpit but I cannot tell what he did, again I am not trained on this type of aircraft, the responsibility fell with Aristide,” said Mr Mwangi.

After the two engineers worked on the aircraft, Mr Mwangi said Mr Aristide signed a certificate of “release it to service” and the aircraft was flown to Voi.

He said he was not aware if the engineers had been approved by the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) to repair the helicopter.

However, he recalled the South African was unable to come up with an immediate diagnosis on June 8  after a problem was noted in the aircraft, making him to seek out the unknown engineer.

The witness also could not ascertain whether the engineers were qualified to work on the aircraft.

He said the police department had sent its own technicians for training in South Africa in mid-March and one of them, a Mr Bulimo, received “on the job” training from Mr Aristide.

Serviced twice

Mr Mwangi told the commission that although the aircraft was “new”, it was serviced twice at the police airwing. He said the aircraft had an engine data recording failure noted by himself and the two engineers who serviced it.

A course deviation indicator, an altitude encoder,  a missing heat-shield screw were also among the defects detected in the aircraft. A monitoring unit, the commission heard, had also been pulled out and replaced by a prototype.

Mr Mwangi was being cross-examined on the aircraft’s short-lived performance of six months after purchase. The hearing continues on Tuesday at the KICC.