Crash: Two Uganda copters still missing

By Francis Ngige

Call it fate, bad luck or inexperience, but on the day Uganda’s top athlete with a familiar Kenyan name humbled Kenya’s marathoners, its primed military pilots failed to navigate Mount Kenya’s fog.

Subsequently, three of its four choppers heading to Somalia to join the African Union’s strike at the heart of Al-Shabaab, amid fanfare at Soroti, ended up lying in the rugged southern edges of the snow-capped mountain, as rescuers scampered to save their passengers.

What followed was horrifying, not only because of the agony of nursing injuries in the dark and freezing temperatures of Mount Kenya that is mostly inaccessible to rescuers, but also due to the fact that the Kenya Defence Forces appear not to have given their best in rescuing the “friendly force” from across the border.  

But even more intriguing was the fact that last evening, the second night fell with two of the choppers untraced along with the14 troopers they were carrying and the heavy weaponry believed to have been on board the sturdy machines, each with a capacity of 4.5 tons. 

The crew of one of the MI 24 choppers was rescued after spending over 12 hours in the bowels of Mount Kenya, grappling with pain, cold, and fear of wild animals — an experience that must have been scarier than chasing Al-Shabaab’s militia over the burning sands of Somalia, while gleefully shelling them.

Four of the seven survivors were airlifted to safety to a Nanyuki airstrip at 1pm aboard a private Tropic Air helicopter, thanks to the heroics acts of the civilian owner, Captain Ben Simpson.

Weary and fatigued, the disheveled soldiers, still clutching their AK 47 riffles, disembarked from the chopper and were ushered to the operations office for First Aid. One of them recounted their horror and desperation as they lay trapped in a forest in a foreign land, staring helplessly as their pilot, who was badly injured, groaning in pain.

“The biting cold and the groaning of the pilot kept us awake the whole night. In the morning, we decided to start walking from the wreckage just incase we could find our way out,” he recalled.

It is then that Captain Simpson spotted them after their frantic attempts to attract the attention of a Kenya Air Force helicopter pilot hovering above them. Four Kenya Wildlife Service officers in this particular rescue mission assisted Simpson, as KDF sources claimed they lacked the type of choppers to dispatch to the mission because most of their prime assets are bogged down in Somalia taking the fight to Al-Shabaab.  

Simpson returned for the pilot and other two soldiers whom he flew to Laikipia Air Base, apparently under instructions from the Kenyan military. While the seven were lucky to be freed from their misery, their colleagues in two other choppers weren’t as lucky and could be spending another night in the wilderness.

Only the fourth helicopter, number Mi17, is reported to have landed in Garissa from Nanyuki where the four helicopters had refueled. The pilot of the third helicopter had radioed for help from the dense forest.

Kenya’s military spokesman Bogita Ongeri denied KDF were unusually slow to rescue the Ugandans and blamed the terrain in the mountain for the slow pace of the operation.

But he could not explain how a private pilot managed to fly to the site where he rescued the seven.

“That mountain is not somewhere you can just fly in and out at will. We are doing our best to rescue the victims. So far we cannot sight the other missing choppers,” said Ongeri

The attack helicopters reportedly were airlifting weaponry to Baidoa in preparation for the final assault on Kismayu by the African Union Mission in Somalia  (Amisom) troops.

Even more worrying is the ominous prospect the copters’ arsenal could land into the wrong hands. Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) reported the choppers had 28 soldiers and had left a base in Soroti in Eastern Uganda on Sunday for Eldoret. “They then left Eldoret for Nanyuki where they were scheduled to refuel before flying to Garissa. The choppers arrived in Nanyuki at 4pm. After that they headed for Garissa and were expected to land at 6pm,” UPDF army spokesperson Felix Kulaigye was quoted saying.

Questions were being raised as to how all the three choppers crashed probably nearly in the same area and at the same time, and why it has taken KDF so long to locate them.

Interviews by The Standard indicated the Ugandan MI 24 military chopper with seven people on board came crashed in bad weather on the southern part of Mt Kenya forest.

It took the expertise of the private helicopter pilot familiar with the area to locate the scene of the crash deep inside the forest. This was 12 hours after the chopper went down in what was described as bad weather.

Simpson located the wreckage of the chopper at 11.00am after circling around the area for more than half an hour. It was curious that KDF was not on top of the rescue mission and it appeared the evacuation was left to the Good Samaritan pilot.

On the Kirinyaga side of the mountain, military personnel and members of the provincial administration had pitched tent at Kamweti area.

“Immediately they spotted my helicopter they beckoned me to come to their rescue. I managed to land about 200 metres from the scene,” said Simpson.

They were carrying hand luggage they managed to salvage from the ill-fated military helicopter.

With no Kenyan or Ugandan military personnel on hand to receive them, the soldiers, three of them limping, and still holding their gun magazines, rested outside the cafeteria at the airstrip.

Among the first four to arrive at the airstrip was a First Lieutenant, a warrant officer, a corporal and one of the co-pilots who whore a jungle green military overall.

They declined to answer questions from journalists saying they are not allowed to speak to the press.

Once they disembarked, two of the soldiers exclaimed: “God is good. We are safe because of his Grace.” “Just know that all of us who were in that chopper are fine, but we can’t say more, our seniors will give you more details,” said the Lieutenant.

For over an hour, the four soldiers sat at the cafeteria recounting their lucky escape from the jaws of death.

Each still holding their mobile phones, the soldiers idled around until an hour later when Kenya Air Force officers from the nearby Laikipia Airbase Arrived to attend to them.

One of them, whose mobile phone was without a back cover was overheard recounting his ordeal to his Kenyan colleague.

“Just 30 minutes after we took off from the Nanyuki Airstrip where we refueled and had lunch, we encountered heavy rains and a storm in a forest,” the Ugandan officer told his Kenyan counterparts.

He went on: “The aircraft, according to the pilot, lost power as he attempted to go back to the airstrip due to the bad weather. He told us it would be difficult for us to continue with the journey.”

He said it was after the pilot started to navigate the chopper to head back to Nanyuki, he heard a loud bang, before he found himself sprawled on the ground. “All of us apart from the captain were conscious. We tried to make calls from our mobile phones, but it was impossible as there was no network.

“The biting cold and the groaning of the pilot kept us awake the whole night. In the morning, we decided to start walking from the wreckage just incase we would find our way out,” he recalled.

“We knew that if we fell asleep, we faced the danger of being attacked by wild animals inside the deep forest. In the morning we saw a military Puma (helicopter) hovering around the area. We beckoned them but there was no response. It appears they did not see us,” he said.

Additional reporting by Cyrus Ombati