KAJIADO, Kenya — Two people were killed on Friday morning when a light aircraft operated by the Kenya School of Flying crashed in the Kipeto area of Kajiado West Constituency during a routine training flight.
The dead were a student pilot and a flight instructor, the only two people aboard. The aircraft came down near the Kipeto Wind Power Project, a few kilometres west of the flying school’s base at Orly Park in Birika.
Kajiado West Sub-County Police Commander Maureen Kuto said preliminary findings pointed to heavy morning mist that sharply reduced visibility in the hilly area.
According to police, the crew attempted an emergency landing after running into the poor conditions, but the aircraft crashed before they could bring it down safely.
The student pilot died at the scene, while the instructor was placed in an ambulance and died while being taken to hospital.
“The first victim succumbed at the scene while the second succumbed while being rushed to hospital,” Kuto said.
Accounts of where the instructor was being taken have varied, with some reports citing Kajiado Referral Hospital and others a facility in Kitengela.
Police said the student was at an advanced stage of training.
The bodies were moved to a mortuary pending post-mortem examinations and formal identification procedures. The identities of the two had not been publicly released at the time of filing.
Local residents and emergency response teams converged on the crash site after the aircraft went down, but both occupants had already died by the time responders arrived.
Private security firm Securex Agencies first flagged the incident publicly at around 12:38pm, saying at that stage that the aircraft type, the number of occupants and the cause of the crash all remained unconfirmed while authorities responded.
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Residents were urged to stay clear of the site, avoid handling debris and follow instructions from emergency responders — standard precautions that also help preserve evidence for investigators.
Aviation safety authorities have been notified and are expected to open an investigation into the circumstances of the crash.
Formal determinations of cause in aircraft accidents typically take months, and preliminary police assessments of weather conditions do not constitute an official finding.
The crash is the latest in a series of incidents involving training aircraft operating out of the busy airspace south of Nairobi, an area that hosts several flight schools and sees a high volume of instructional flights.
