- A military probe team, known as a Board of Inquiry, has already been established.
- Brig Mohamed Salah Farah, the Commander of Laikipia Airbase, leads this team.
Image: FILE
A team formed to investigate the chopper crash that killed former Chief of Defence Forces Gen Francis Ogolla and ten others has visited the US as part of the probe into the incident.
The team went to the Bell Textron Inc. company that manufactured the ill-fated chopper with some of the collected parts of the helicopter.
This will enable the manufacturer to among others determine how and why the chopper crashed, Defence Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale revealed.
“We are engaging and have upscaled that up to the manufacturer Bell, of the U.S because they also have an interest,” Duale said.
“Our teams are now in the US and have gone with all the parts and once all that information is collected and recommendations are given to us, we will tell the country if was it mechanical or anything else.”
He spoke during Citizen TV’s JKLive Show on Wednesday more than a month since the chopper crashed in Elgeyo Marakwet.
The CS said the report would be made public but did not reveal when.
He said the Defence Council will receive the report and hand over it to the Commander in Chief.
“Kenyan taxpayers who fund the military, family and friends of Ogolla will have answers,” he said.
A team sent to the scene to investigate the accident was told the propeller of the Bell UH-1H Huey II helicopter was not moving when it came down minutes after take-off on April 18.
Witnesses told the team the chopper dropped like a stone landing on its belly.
The impact forced the engine, which is on the rooftop, to cave in crushing the victims on board.
An autopsy on the bodies of the victims has confirmed they had multiple injuries.
The cause of the crash is however yet to be known.
A military probe team, known as a Board of Inquiry, has already been established.
Brig Mohamed Salah Farah, the Commander of Laikipia Airbase, leads this team.
Police are also among those who are helping in the probe.
President William Ruto promised to ensure an investigation into the helicopter crash and the report made public.
Ruto said he has confidence in the professionalism of the military in probing the helicopter crash.
"The Kenya Defence Forces is as concerned as I am on the life of Ogolla. There will be no shroud of doubt on what happened to General Ogolla," he said.
The probe team will among others focus on the mechanical state of the chopper at the time of the crash.
They will also look into the state of the pilots on board at the time. They have interrogated pilots in the military to understand how things were in the service in general.
The incident continues to draw reactions from various quarters.
Multi-agency teams investigating the crash combed villages with hopes of recovering valuables that were stolen from victims of the incident in vain.
The teams say some of the valuables including watches, mobile phones and shoes were picked up by first responders to the scene.
Some of the mobile phones are being switched on and off and are on the move in the villages there.
The family of Gen Ogolla said the only thing that was handed over to them by the military from the site was his wedding ring.
Some of the bodies were intact when they were picked from the scene and in uniforms but with multiple injuries and without valuables.
Others were burnt following the crash that happened soon after the chopper had taken off.
The probe team has also talked to other pilots in the airforce to understand what may have happened.
On Wednesday, Duale dismissed claims that most of the military equipment in the country was obsolete and was the cause of most aircraft crashes in the country saying that he was constantly using the same chopper that killed Ogolla.
He said the plane that recently killed Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the country’s foreign minister, and six other people was also from the same manufacturer and model.
“I used the aircraft that killed Ogolla’s a number of times... more than 15 times. Prof Kindiki, IG Koome all used it. We used it when we were going to operational areas. It is a very unique machine that can fly at night…our troops use it in very difficult terrain,” he argued.
“The helicopter in which the Iranian President and his foreign minister died is the same helicopter, it is Bell from the U.S. with two propellers.”
Gen Ogolla and nine other military officers and servicemen died in a helicopter crash on April 18 in Sindar area, Kaben location, Tot division, in Elgeyo Marakwet County.
The affected chopper is among those that had been acquired from the US in 2016.
KDF-Kenya Air Force took delivery of six Bell UH-1H Huey II helicopters from the United States.
Officials said then the helicopters were to be used to assist with counter-terrorism operations in the region and assist troops who are part of the African Union mission.
The Bell Huey II is an upgraded version of the popular Bell UH-1H medium-lift helicopter.
The upgrade kit uses refurbished zero-timed airframes together with upgraded engines, drive trains, avionics, and rotors.
The upgrades provide significant advancements over the standard UH-1H platform including improved hovering capabilities and longer TBO intervals for time-sensitive components.
The helicopter can be configured for a variety of missions including disaster response, firefighting, military support, cargo, special ops and search.