A student pilot and his teacher were killed on Tuesday after their plane collided with a passenger plane in mid-air near an airport in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, police said.
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The Kenya Civil Aviation Authority said in a statement that it was investigating the causes of the “accident” that occurred on Tuesday morning “involving a Cessna aircraft belonging to (Ninety-Nines Flying School) and a Dash 8 aircraft belonging to (Kenyan Airlines (Safarilink), without mentioning any findings.”
Nairobi Police Chief Adamson Bonge told AFP that the two passengers of the Cessna plane, the trainee pilot and his instructor, had died.
In a phone call with AFP, Ninety-Nines Flying Club, which presents itself on its website as a flight school “dedicated to the private, commercial and aviation sectors”, confirmed that “an accident occurred this morning” (Tuesday) without further comment. .
Safarilink explained in a statement that the 39 passengers and 5 crew members who were on board a flight heading to Diani, a coastal resort on the Kenyan coast, heard “a loud noise shortly after take-off” from Wilson Airport on Tuesday morning.
The company, which serves 18 destinations in Kenya and neighboring Tanzania, added that “no injuries were reported” on board the plane, which immediately turned around.
Wilson Airport is a small airport located south of Nairobi, from which mainly domestic flights depart, especially to the coast and national parks. It is located about fifteen kilometers from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, the largest in the country.
