‘Mystery engineer’: Saitoti copter ‘was repaired by an outsider’ - Eurocopter AS 350B3e Ecureuil, Kenya Police Air Wing, 5Y-CDT, Ngong Hills, near Nairobi, Kenya

In Summary

• It also emerged that Eurocopter, the suppliers of the helicopter, may have short-changed the government by delivering an aircraft, which failed to meet the specifications in the tender bid.
• Police Airwing chief engineer Johnson Mwangi Gathatu said the man who repaired the helicopter was not known to the police.
• He said that the engineer was brought on board after the Eurocopter sanctioned engineer, a Mr Aristide, failed to unravel the cause of the stress signal on the aircraft’s control panel.

The helicopter that came down killing Internal Security minister George Saitoti and five others was repaired by an engineer at Wilson Airport two days before the crash, a commission of inquiring into the accident heard on Monday.

It also emerged that Eurocopter, the suppliers of the helicopter, may have short-changed the government by delivering an aircraft, which failed to meet the specifications in the tender bid.

Police Airwing chief engineer Johnson Mwangi Gathatu said the man who repaired the helicopter was not known to the police. (READ: Saitoti crash copter had 11 parts missing)

He told the commission chaired by Lady Justice Kalpana Rawal that the engineer was brought on board after the Eurocopter sanctioned engineer, a Mr Aristide, failed to unravel the cause of the stress signal on the aircraft’s control panel.

Mr Mwangi said the arrangement between Mr Aristide and the Wilson Airport-based engineer did not involve the police.

“It was a third party arrangement when Aristide failed to find a solution to technical problem,” he told the commission sitting at KICC in Nairobi. “I did not authorise him, it was their own arrangement.”

No records exist 

He said no records existed to show the intervention was made but it was not strange as engineers consult each other throughout in the aviation industry. “I saw him go into the cockpit but I cannot tell what he did, again I am not trained on this type of aircraft, the responsibility fell with Aristide,” said Mr Mwangi.

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