What you will never know about some Kenyan pilots

If you are about to fly off somewhere I strictly recommend that you do not read this post until you get back from your trip.

I want to discuss Kenyan pilots. There is no better time to discuss them than now. It is certainly better than trying to discuss them after a major air disaster.
Kenya Airways’ Captain Irene Koki Mutungi the first woman captain of a passenger jet aircraft in Africa (flies the Boeing 737-300 for KQ) is a trail blazer in many ways. I dare say that women have proved time and again to be more trustworthy when given grave responsibilities like regularly “holding the lives of passengers in their hands.” Read more about this amazing Kenyan woman.

I must admit that aviation is a subject that really fascinates me. Right from the amazing humble beginnings to the latest developments, I always love anything I can get my hands on that talks about the aviation industry then and now. Then there are countless episodes of Air crash investigations and Seconds from disaster that I have taken in on DSTV and elsewhere. And so as I have been digging around for information on Kenyan pilots, I am not totally ignorant of the subject.

But let’s start this post with a bizarre conclusion from a court of Inquiry probe into the Air India Express plane crash in May this year. The inquiry concluded that the disaster was caused by a “sleepy pilot” who had in fact been asleep for most of the flight from Dubai to the city of Mangalore. He was therefore disoriented as he approached the runaway at the wrong angle and even ignored several warning signs. The plane carrying low cadre Indian immigrant workers coming back home to for their annual holidays overshot the runway, plunging into a gorge and burst into flames. Eight people survived the inferno. Close to 350 people died in the crash. Experts at the inquiry said that because the pilot of the Indian aircraft was suffering "sleep inertia" he made the fatal mistake of trying to take off again when applying emergency brakes would have comfortably saved the situation. Read more about the accident report HERE.

Apparently the Air India Express pilot was a Serbian and everybody knows that pilots from that side of the world (mostly any country that was part of the former unified USSR) have a reputation for being reckless. But let us turn our attention to Kenyan pilots which is what this post is supposed to be about.

I was pleasantly surprised to be informed that Kenyan pilots are considered to be amongst the best in the world. How can I forget what this veteran pilot told me;

“I know a couple of Kenyan pilots who are way too comfortable landing a jet aircraft in freezing conditions where ice can be treacherous. It is as if they were born in those kinds of conditions. Splendid pilots I tell you.”

I have heard many other words of praise for particular Kenyan pilots from many quarters.

However digging deeper, there are some horrifying tales of what really goes on behind the scenes. It is one tyhing to be a talented pilot and quite another to be a disciplned one. Admittedly discipline in a pilot is a very personal thing and trying to supervise it in pilots can even be harder. The truth is that despite the clear rules many of our pilots take to the air when they are drunk or have not had enough sleep.

These days flying a modern jet aircraft is very much an automated kind of thing. So a pilot mostly plays a supervisory role. We have the autopilot mode and fly-by-wire technology that introduces computer precision that no human can match to functions like descending gradually for a landing. At first glance this may appear to be a good thing and it is. But the downside is that a pilot literally “goes to sleep” and staying alert becomes very difficult. So in many ways the old days of manual flying were better because they kept a pilot alert during the entire duration of the flight.

The thing about the sophisticated computers that are today’s jet aircrafts is that if anything goes wrong it will need a very quick-witted alert pilot to quickly take in and understand the situation and make a decision, sometimes with a deadline of split seconds or just a few minutes, which could make the difference between life and death. You don’t want a pilot who is drunk or sleepy in that kind of situation. Or one who is less than fully alert because they were having a good time with some young lasses in some exotic world capital night club most of the previous night.

What makes matters worse is that pilots get away with this kind of thing all the time. One could even be lucky enough to complete their entire career sleeping most of the time without any mishap or unfortunate incidents like the Air India Express crash happening. But what happens the day something goes wrong?

Could disaster have been averted and lives saved when things went wrong in the Kenya Airways aircraft in Abidjan in 2000 (mystery of cause still to be solved) and in Cameroon in 2007 (What the crash investigations report said about pilot error)

See also: Ugly wars in the sky between Kenya Airways and the South Africans

Join the raging Kumekucha debate about drug barons in government.

Visa Ban And Drug Barons in Government

Kenyans are a very disgusting lot. They really don’t care about the most important question one needs to urgently ask whenever they come across somebody who seems to have cash literally coming out of their ears. And that critical question is; where did the money come from?
Just show Kenyans the cash and you are a hero, no questions asked. But personally I would go as far as questioning even cash that floods in for so-called good causes. Charity Kaluki Ngilu announced her bid for the presidency in 1997 looking “all money” complete with a brand new seductive dress that was a tad too short but must have cost a bomb. It was all for a good cause. After years of the Moi regime we wanted to get rid of him pronto and for a brief moment it looked like maybe a woman could break the tribal barriers and unite enough opposition votes to remove Moi and KANU from power. What followed was one of the best financed presidential campaigns ever seen in Kenya. Very few stopped to ask the crucial question, where did all that money come from? Had Ngilu won those rigged presidential elections, this question would have become even more critical and so in many ways it is just as well that she did not win and the only thing she emerged with was the distinction of being the first woman in Kenya to run for the presidency. In retrospect this was hardly surprising coming from a tribe that has had a long history of being led by women (but then that is a post for another day.)

As a matter of interest that Ngilu cash came from some very deep pockets in the United States of America with an agenda in Kenya. The same gentlemen that former Kanu secretary general Joseph Kamotho bluntly addressed in the press and told; this is NOT the Philippines. Many puzzled Kenyans were wondering what the hell the balding guy was talking about. I am told that once upon a time the CIA helped install a woman president in the Philippines and one of the key tools that helped them change the course of the political river that led to the win of Corazon Aquino was wads of cash. Yet another fascinating story for another day.

But I digress too much because today I address the issue of drug barons in Kenyan politics. This is probably one of the most dangerous subjects to write about in Kenya. I know because I have had my life threatened and have even had to run. Make no mistake about it, these drug folks are well organized and their cash opens all doors for them. There is hardly a place to hide when they have identified you as “a problem”. Even an anonymous blogger like myself can suddenly find that they are pretty exposed (as I found out the hard way).

In naming one of the drug barons I know in government let me tell you a short story. In the run up to the 2007 general elections I was fully behind ODM and its’ presidential candidate Raila Odinga. I am NOT a Luo but like many Kenyans I was seduced by the ODM rhetoric and I was yearning for change. Cynical and hard to convince as I am, I found myself in the place where I was sure that ODM would bring about the desired change we vadly needed in Kenya. And that is the reason why I was deeply shocked and hurt when I later heard that the ODM presidential candidate had offered Mr John Harun Mwau a full cabinet seat in his half of the coalition government. Mwau, the story goes, turned it down because of his frequent Business trips out of the country and accepted the less busy docket of an assistant minister. Knowing the character of the man I cringed at this news. Imagine a drug baron as a full cabinet minister carrying a diplomatic passport and all? I was later told by some ODM die-hard that “the captain” did not have a choice because the man gave ODM a lot of cash for the presidential campaign. That did not wash with me. So what if he financed the ODM presidential campaign? Why was he allowed to in the first place by a candidate looking for change in Kenya?

I have written several posts in this blog about this man (you can read this one) and so I don’t want to repeat myself. The bottom line is that Mwau was a sharpshooter working with the Kenya police and climbed up to the rank of acting Inspector of police. And he was not one of the more disciplined officers because he insisted on keeping his beard and had to get a letter from some doctor proving that shaving his beard would be a risk to his health. When Mr Mwau left the police force in some very controversial circumstances he suddenly became a very rich man. Journalists have often asked him how he made his money and he has always waived his hand and said it was from business and quickly hurried on to the next point. One journalist pressed the question and asked what business exactly he was doing. Mwau replied that he was importing electronics. Mwau in a thinly veiled threat told journalists to be careful with him. Apart from being a scary character to journalists seeking information, Mwau has always been pretty generous with reporters. Let me just leave it at that. And so journalists have learnt not to ask Mr Mwau certain questions and even more important not to dig too deeply into how he acquired his stupendous wealth.

All over the world former policemen are rarely considered to be overly intelligent, if anything many jokes are traded about the lack of intelligence of policemen. However in Mr Mwau’s case there is evidence to prove that he is an extremely intelligent man. In a land mark case challenging the election of Moi as President in 1992 (in an election where Mwau also stood for president), he opted to represent himself and ended up impressing many lawyers and even judges (although he did not win the case). Many thought his performance was better than what many trained lawyers would have achieved. When this kind of man is let loose in a country like Kenya for so many years unchecked the result is that he becomes part of the very fabric of the nation so that touching him may have a major impact right across the entire economy of the nation.

For instance there are allegations supported by enough documentation and evidence that the well-respected Nakumatt chain of supermarkets had its’ early days financed by money launderers. Money laundering and the drug business are inseparable twins joined at the hip and the heart. Read this Kumekucha story for details.

(To be continued)

See also the earlier Kumekucha article: Is it okay for a drug baron to be in government?

Late Extra...

Judging from some of the comments this post has provoked I felt that a comment made by a reader from one of my earlier articles in Kumekucha about the drugs trade would be appropriate to put things in perspective. I reproduce it below;

Anonymous said...

I got a Kenyan boyfriend the other day and I have been trying to familliarize myself with his home country. Having come across this blog I can't help but wonder about how simple life is in that part of the world. As a police officer in Miami I have to say that narcotic drugs activites are no joke, I can tell you stories that would make it difficult for you to sleep at night. It seems like you guys want to destroy your country by creating the impression that narcotic drugs are a business that can create abundant wealth.

5/27/07 11:47 PM