Tebiti,
 
What is the development on the case? Have your highly placed intelligence source leaked any new info?
 
I was reading the standard and found their report to be a contradiction of the info your source is telling you. You said the pilot was 33 years old and should be flying at that age. Standard said, “the pilot whose passport shows he was a resident of Osterburg but born in Gleiwitz, and who could have been celebrating his 51st birthday next month, ..”
 
Is the standard hiding the “fact” that the pilot was only 33 years old?
 
The Standard’s story also points out that the pilot was flying in clouds above a high elevation terrain. They say the pilot crashed into trees.
 
It is only 6 months ago when communal punishment nearly destroyed our country yet you are here with the good old propaganda that paints the Kikuyu as an enemy of the people. My brother you should remember that when hell broke lose, only the fat cats did not feel the pinch. Today, every single mwananchi is feeling the pinch of the stupidity that we went through at the begining of the year.
 
If you think Kibaki killed Laboso and Kones, hold Kibaki accountable instead of draging an entire community into the mess. It is easy for our to type nonsense from our living rooms in the west and plant hate. It will be a different story if you were an ODM tea picker named Isaboke at the Kaptein Tea estate. You could have been labeled Madoadoa and you know what that means. Read this: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/24069.html
 
Nobody is immune from hate my brother. Nest time you imagine that you have highly placed intelligence sources and you think of using your imagined information to spread hate, remember that you may be digging your own grave. Your political heroes have tight security but the foot soldiers feel the pinch of civil strive.
 
Mosasi

   ****
http://blog.jaluo.com/?p=921
            – – –
Date:  Mon, 16 Jun 2008 09:27:09 -0500
From:  aboge001
Subject:  Re: Kones’ plane
   ****

– – –
Date:  Sun, 22 Jun 2008 09:34:57 -0700 (PDT)
From:  Rodgers Akombe
Subject:   Re: Kones’ plane

– – – – – – – – – – –

http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143988925&cid=4

The shocking tale of Kones’ Pilot
Published on June 22, 2008, 12:00 am; The Standard;

By Sunday Standard Team

As Kenyans united to mourn the two fallen MPs, questions abound on the credibility of Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) and the competence of the pilot of the crash plane.

Enquiries into the records of the plane and the pilot, and scrutiny of KCAA’s conduct, point to discrepancies that bring to question the safety of local airspace. Those who died on Tuesday June 10 could just have walked into a death trap — the pilot who was cleared to fly totally with the help of the eye (Visual Flight Rule), and was prohibited to fly in clouds, tried to navigate his way through it.

The Nairobi-Kericho sector on which he flew is decreed high-altitude and the lowest Chrsitoph Maria Schnerr, who also died in the crash, was 13,000ft. He crashed at 8,000ft above sea level. He was so low for the area, and engulfed by clouds, he ploughed into a canopy on the Kajong’a Hills.

The plane had two Global Positioning System (GPS) at the time. “GPS is useful but it is not approved solely on general aviation aircraft as a navigation tool,” our source explained.

Had the pilot been on the Instrument Flight Mode, he added — which means the pilot did not see the environment around him — the Air Traffic Controller would have alerted him of the obstruction.

“But because he was on visual rule, the ATC takes it that you know what you are doing and you will steer off at the right time, unless of course you report distress. In this case we need to also ask if the pilot did so. So far there is no evidence he did,” the expert familiar with the latest crash, told The Sunday Standard.

Pilot mishaps

The plane itself has its own mystery. It had United States of America registration N2322T when it landed in Kenya; its first registration in the country was 5Y-BUN. But shortly after ‘belly-landing’ at Ukunda, it was changed to 5Y-BVE.

“It is not strange to change the registration of planes, but in this case why shortly after an accident? Did something serious happen to the plane?” asked the expert familiar with aircraft accident investigations.

Records show the pilot was born on July 16, 1957, and held a German passport number 4893048079.

The records also show he could have operated in Kenya for about three years, on a tourist visa.

It is not clear why KCAA would allow a ‘tourist’ to fly a commercial plane, at the country’s busiest airport, let alone train as one.

In September 2006, Schnerr landed his plane on the ‘belly’ while flying between Kijigwa and Ukunda. He apparently forgot to engage the landing gear, which releases the retractable wheels from its fold. This was besides the hair-raising incident in which he flew across a restricted path above Jomo Kenyatta International Airport’s Runway 06, nearly coming into contact with an international airliner.

The story of Schnerr and his plane, with which he crashed and died alongside Roads Minister Kipkalya Kones, Assistant Minister Lorna Laboso, and Kones’ bodyguard, Kenneth Kipkoech Bett, also ends up with more questions, than answers.

Demand for the truth

With tears rolling down the cheeks of those who knew the three, stung by how sudden their lives were cut short mid-air, Bett was buried on Thursday, Laboso on Friday and Kones yesterday.

At the three burials the demand was made: “We must be told what happened with their flight, whether it was human or mechanical error. We must be told.”

The mourners, among them VIPs, said that was the only way their hearts and minds would settle, and along with it, should come assurances similar mistakes would not be made on air.

KCAA director Chris Kuto has on several occasions since the crash defended the authority’s record, dismissing calls for his resignation along with other board members, as misplaced and unnecessary.

The authority has also vouched for the operator of the aircraft, the pilot and the plane itself.

However, walking in the footsteps of the pilot whose passport shows he was a resident of Osterburg but born in Gleiwitz, and who could have been celebrating his 51st birthday next month, tells a different story.

It is much like that of his plane, which saw him arrested in Mombasa when he arrived with it in Kenya, after flying 75 hours. Instead of going the route for which it was cleared from the US, with a landing in Addis Ababa, he detoured to Djibouti. When the plane landed in Mombasa, the anomaly in the route saw him arrested. It is not clear how this matter was resolved, but one thing is, on a tourist visa he conquered the sky with passengers aboard.

Controversy also surrounds his flying hours, whose accumulation to pilots is a mark of honour, competence and experience. The pilot cleared to fly out the plane after it was brought in from the US, was drawn from Kenya Police Air Wing pool, but privately.

Schnerr was in the cockpit but the 75 hours were loaded into his log, further helping fast track him to the inner club of white shirts, epaulettes and navy blue coats and trousers. It was part of the arsenal for hands-on experience, which any operator and licensing officer ask for.

Adventure pilot

The German’s sojourn in Kenya, and his legendary yet short career in the air began in 2004 when he arrived, armed with a tourist visa. Then aged 47 he bumped onto a Kenyan pilot and friendship blossomed. He is said to have expressed interest in flying and was soon training for pupil pilot licence in Nairobi. Armed with a tourist visa, and a foreigner at that, and having a good friend inside KCAA, he was no stranger at Wilson Airport and the sky above. For his age and colour, he could be training for leisure, and who can stop a tourist from seeking adventure in the air?

“Whether he had the minimum qualifications for the PPL is not clear, but at this stage, it could be argued he was training for leisurely solo flights, not to ferry human cargo,” said our source, who because of the sensitivity of the latest crash and the small-sized numbers of accomplished investigators in his field, spoke on condition of anonymity.

Through with the PPL, and having failed in some of the ground courses forcing him to re-sit the exams, he asked to register for what is every young pilots dream, the real money-raker — Commercial Pilot Licence (CPL) . He was told it would take between 12-18 months locally, and he would not have it.

He is said to have left for the US from where, within four months, he returned with his CPL, complete with instrument rating multi-engine (clearance to fly more than one engine).

“In America’s ground schools, to get a CPL takes more than six months. This is a world record,” added our source.

Last year Schnerr sought to have his foreign licence converted into Kenya’s. “This is mandatory. He was supposed to do some ground exams, including law, navigation, geography of the area and meteorology,” the source added.

“The question that must be asked is who checked him out or supervised and guaranteed to the authorities he deserved the Kenyan CPL to fly? It must be asked how many hours he had and if he had the command of Kenya’s geography,” our expert added.

Some discrepancies

He said this was important because among the aviation fraternity, the pilot was not supervised stringently and would most times do “touch and go” (land and take-off) exercises at Wilson Airport between 6:15pm and 7:15pm.

He said records show he started flying his own plane, which he initially wanted to lease out, with 250 hours (this includes the 75 borrowed from the police pilot who brought the plane).

To process the purchase of the plane, as well as the handling of the requisite registration rules, he approached a registered operator at Wilson Airport. He could not do it himself, because he was not registered.

It came with an export certificate of airworthiness signed on the November 5, 2006, by Mr Steven Saunders of the US Federal Aviation Administration. This is within the Department, in Kenyan terms, Ministry of Transportation. It showed it had flown for 4,488.9 hours.

Apart from the “belly landing’ in Ukunda, the plane had no other incidents of mishaps, and on January 5, last year, Kenya Civil Aviation Authorities’ Airworthiness Engineer M Igumba, reported to the repairer, in writing, “document vetting findings on of 5Y-BUM”.

He raised some discrepancies, which had to be addressed before a compliance report is submitted to KCAA.

Hours carried from US aircraft logbook to Kenyan aircraft logbook did not tally.

Operator’s name and address not written in the logbooks.

Before carrying passengers undercarriage retraction and extension check must be carried out.

Meticulous inspection of the main landing gear (for damages suffered at the ‘belly landing’ to be corrected.It is not clear what followed but the expert explained: “The plane appears to have been in good condition, it is the management of the flight, routing and piloting that I believe led to the crash. The pilot was not seeing the ground, he was in the clouds, and he was not on instruments, that is the recipe for disaster.”

In any case, the pilot had flouted Kenya Civil Aviation Act 394, which among others, bars non-residents without training from flying in Kenya.

But the fable in the flight lies in the operator, a private company at Wilson Airport, to which Schnerr turned because he did not have an Air Operator Certificate.

“This is the only aircraft the company had, but the actual owner was the pilot. The question must be asked if the operator had the capacity to technically manage a flight, including routing, or it was left to the pilot whose training appear to have gaps,” our source added.”

The guy who dispatched the plane in the company might not have been qualified, we must ask, who planned the route for Chris (the pilot)? Was he competent? Did he know all the sectors and alternate airports among other flight related factors?”

He posed: “For the pilot to fly out on this environment he should have been signed out by a competent and approved inspector. Was this done and who is the inspector around that day?’’

It is to the KCAA board that the nation looks up to for an answer to the hard questions. And it is the Air Accidents Inspector to ask.

However, in the aviation fraternity it is often asked if the KCAA board has the capacity and independence to execute its mandate. Though it could have been well intentioned given their experience in the field, some of the top KCAA board members have vast investments in the industry.

Could the bug of conflict of interests have bitten the board? When they make decisions, are they free enough or do they pull back because of the possible implication to their interests?

These are some of the hard questions the Government and the international civil aviation agencies will be asking as they try and unearth what ails Kenya’s aviation industry.

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Date:  Sun, 22 Jun 2008 17:24:00 +0000
From:  Nicholas Mireri
Subject:  The shock tale of Kones’ Pilot