Two crew members escape unhurt as police chopper crashes at Wilson Airport
A police helicopter crashed meters away from the Wilson Airport runway on Saturday afternoon after it developed mechanical problems while landing.
The craft registration 5Y-SFA (Mil Mi-17 Hip) had two police officers – a chief inspector attached to the Kenya Police Airwing and a flight engineer onboard during the accident – but none was injured.
Sources at the Wilson Airport told Nairobi News that the police chopper had landed from Garissa county and it was cleared for takeoff hours later after a safety check up was conducted.
This incident comes 5 days after an aircraft operated by Safarilink plane a local airline, skidded off the runway at Wilson Airport on landing from Lamu.
According to a statement by the airline, the airplane of registration number 5Y-SLJ skidded off the runway at 6:20pm after a tyre burst.
The Safarilink plane incident happened just a day after a Silverstone Air plane traveling from Lodwar made an emergency landing at the Eldoret International Airport after it lost one of its rear tyres during take -off.
The Nairobi-bound plane, which had five passengers and five crew members, was forced to divert to Moi International Airport in Eldoret where it was granted emergency landing permission.