One dead in Kilifi plane mishap

An elderly pilot died instantly when a plane he was flying from Lamu crashed into a Rea Vipingo thicket in Kilifi Saturday.

The impact threw one of the plane’s wing 500 metres away from the partially damaged fuselage while the pilot’s body was thrown 50 metres from this wreckage.

Sources at the scene of incident told the Nation the six-seater 5Y-NAM Piper Saratoga (PA32) plane circled briefly before losing control and crash landed in the dense thicket.

“I saw the plane circling in the air before it came tumbling down at speed into the Mikaoni Village thicket of Vipingo ridges,” said one witness who declined to give his name.

According to two pilots Adnan Hassanali and Nikhil Amin their Italian colleague, Gianmocia Piero, had left Lamu at 9.00 am and was headed to Mombasa when the incident happened.

“He’s a businessman in Lamu and acquired this plane in 2007, which he has been flying between Lamu and Mombasa for the past three years,” they said.

The pilot's body was discovered at 12.45 p.m. by a Gongoni Villager Renson Loma, 42.

“I accidentally saw pieces of body organs on some of the thorny thicket bushes and on looking I saw the ripped body of the deceased,” the visibly shocked villager said.

Led by the Coast deputy provincial police officer Jacinta Kinyua, a crime scene unit team rushed to where the body had been found and started investigations.

In a press briefing, Kilifi OCPD Clement Wangai said the pilot was alone at the time the plane crashed into the Vipingo ridges.

“We don’t know he reasons of the crash but a team of Aviation experts are on their way coming here from Nairobi,” he said and dismissed reports that the plane manifesto indicated the plane had five other passengers.

“Wherever you (press) got that bit of information I don’t know because our initial investigations only to point to one person on board the ill-fated plane,” he added.

He thanked Rea Vipingo personnel and local people for their efforts in combing the bushes.