Is it what led to Saitoti’s death?

 

The helicopter that crashed and killed Internal Security minister George Saitoti and five others who were onboard was repaired by an engineer at Wilson Airport two days before it went down. This was heard by the commission of enquiry on Monday.

Eurocopter, who are the supplier of the helicopter, may have delivered a helicopter which failed to meet the specifications in the tender bid by the government.

The man who repaired the helicopter was known to the police, this is according to Police Airwing chief engineer Johnstone Mwangi Gathatu. It’s claimed that the helicopter had 11parts missing at the time.
The commission which is chaired by Lady Justice Kalpana Rawal heard from Mr Mwangi 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 police Airwing said that the arrangement between the Wilson Airport based engineer and Mr Aristide did not involve the police department. “It was a third party arrangement when Aristide failed to find a solution to technical problem,” Mwangi told the commission sitting at KICC in Nairobi. “I did not authorise him, it was their own arrangement.”

He further added that there were no records to show the intervention between the parties involved and engineers do consult each other in the aviation industry.
Mr Mwangi who was at the center of the enquiry said, “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.” Mr Aristide signed a certificate of “release it to service” and it was flown to Voi.
The approval of the engineers by the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) to repair the copter is not known to Mwangi.
Mwangi recalled that Mr Aristide was unable to come up with an immediate diagnosis of the helicopter.
Mr Mwangi was being cross-examined on why the air craft had a short span performance of six months after being purchased. The hearing on the matter continues at the KICC on Tuesday.