from Kenya Daily Nation
" The pilot of a cargo plane that crashed in Nairobi on Wednesday, killing him and three others, made a distress call moments before it plunged into a building.
Preliminary investigations showed that Mr Harrison Okang’a called the control tower seeking clearance to “transmit,” but did not utter any other word after he was given the go-ahead.
Instead, the plane changed course and investigators believe the pilot was attempting to make an emergency landing on a straight stretch on the Eastern bypass before it hit electricity lines, then the building before bursting into flames.
The Fokker 50, registration 5Y-CET, crashed at Utawala near the General Service Unit Training School at 4.17am, just two minutes after taking off from the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.
It split into two on impact, with the flames leaving most of it completely destroyed.
Co-pilot Sayid Abdi, flight engineer Kevin Kamau and loader Geoffrey Masika perished.
Mr Okang’a, a father of five, is a veteran flier who retired from the Kenya Air Force in 1994 as a captain. He joined the Kenya Wildlife Service before he started flying for commercial airlines ferrying both passengers and goods across the region.
He first worked for Eagle Aviation, then Bluebird Airlines before joining Skyworld. He was experienced on the Nairobi-Mogadishu route as he had flown on it for many years."