Lights out at Jomo Kenyatta
 

Who else had the misfortune to be airborne in the Nairobi area last night? It was quite an experience.... a power outage (second or third in recent days) caused a failure of most of JK's key services - such as radar, ILS, runway lights, radio frequencies to the detriment and consternation of the various small aircraft and large airlines that were unlucky to be trying to get in or out of the area!!!

I was coming in after dark to Wilson - which as it has no IFR approach, requires an ILS into JKIA with an overshoot to a VFR landing at Wilson. However inside the TMA I discovered that the power was out, and one poor controller (well done that man!!!) was struggling to keep planes from colliding into each other. With only one frequency working he was desperately trying to provide a manual radar service by asking aircraft to give their altitude, heading and distance from JK.

Can you imagine coming into an international airport with a full passenger airliner and being asked what radial and level are you because ATC don't know where you are or how close you are to other traffic?? "You might have traffic at your twelve o'clock but we have no radar". Its a very strange feeling to be up in the air on a moonless night with no 'safety net' around you. It was chaos with aircraft diverting to Mombasa, Kili, Eldoret etc and several light aircraft (myself included) opting to a do a GPS visual approach direct to Wilson - dodging circuit traffic doing training, and other traffic making a similar informal descent/arrival without radar/ATC.

With only one frequency you couldn't get a word in - even to tell the harassed controller you were leaving his frequency/control. He was handing all possible traffic off to other ATC services just to control the situation. Emirates, KQ and the rest of the 'big boys' must have been having one hell of a night dealing with all of this and the subequent paperwork!!

One of my passengers today says that when they did finally make it to JKIA later that same night, it was still without runway lights - not sure how that works with airline aviation regulations?!

It was a really unnerving scenario and not one I care to repeat. So to everyone who was out there, well done for making it home. Fly safely (and thanks to the one lonesome controller for doing his best..):ok:

Yup.. I was in the area and I must say it was
chaotic! 2nd day in a row! What a :mad: shame in this
day and age to have a total black out at an international
airport with no reliable back up power!! Seems like we going
backwards instead of forward:ugh:

It isn't the first time & definitely won't be the last time it happens. In the past it has usually happened during thunderstorms which makes it even more stressful.

I agree, it is a scandal that this can happen at any commercial airport, especially a relatively busy international one and a busy hub for KQ.

JKIA is a joke and the Government should get a grip on the problem. As an airport, even by (sorry to have to say it) African standards, it is a ragged, old embarrassment of a building - not the nice welcome to the country for it's thousands of tourists. Now add to this the unsafe airspace with unreliable navaids in a mountainous area.....I hate to tempt fate, but this is something waiting to happen!

This is not the way to get the full FAA Cat 1 certification that the Authorities are expecting to get.

Until the politicians stop playing petty party politics (that's difficult to say!) and start running Kenya like the successful Country it should be and not a tribal toy, nothing will change! :ugh: Sad to say.

What would happen in the case of a hull-loss? Curious to know (god forbid it happen), because in the case of families of victims from, say, a developed-nation airline litigation would, I imagine, be a foregone conclusion. Would be interested in an expert analysis taking such a scenario to its logical conclusion, factoring in all the obstacles inherent in our wonderful system here :rolleyes:

Not the same number or type of attorneys in many parts of the world... Might not be any kind of legal action for a hull loss in a place like Nairobi... Certainly not likely to be anything that results in any kind of change to a government

In the event of a hull loss the blame would be placed upon the pilots and the airline by the Kenyan CAA. That agency would regulate any post accident inquiry. Culpability would lie with the pilots for not having diverted and blame would lie with the company for not having a fuel policy incorporating island reserve.

Cavorting , you have nailed it ..........any crew hearing on ATC of any prob should divert asap before the queue gets too big ! Dar are also having power probs , are the lights going out in East Africa ?

It seems like its East african thing nowadays these blackouts... We should just get more serious about it. It can actually be a killer!

Tanzania has power problems, but so far no trouble with the back up systems. Apparently there are also mobile emergency runway lights at JKIA, but leaves you without Taxi lights. No one ever noticed how the taxi way marking system flickers after it has been raining? The contractor should be dragged into the street and shot :ok:

At the risk of being sceptical, has no-one ever noticed that in local accident reports (when and if they ever get made public) that it is NEVER the pilot's fault?? Unlike the rest of the world where pilot error is the major factor, in Africa it is always something else instead - the plane went out of control, there was a mysterious engine failure, there was windshear, sudden turbulence, mechanical failure or a hitherto unknown mountain in the way etc. It is never the pilot's fault.

If a plane has a incident when there is a power outage and no ATC or normal facilities, I'm betting that the report will come up with something else other than the pilot should have used his superior knowledge and training to avoid a developing situation!!:rolleyes:

It's often a bad batch of tyres too!

Hmm, those new Caravans are a b*gger for dodgy tyres hey? ;)

Ah those amazing sub-standard tyres that have been inflicted on Kenya. And did you know they are specially left or right handed tyres?? And its the left ones that are faulty and always blowing...?!!:suspect:

Right hand tyres don't have the same problem....

Ah, but just imagine what it would be like if they used RWY 25!:E:E:E

When I was in E. Africa, Zanzibar was without power for about 2 months! And, it used to be the best, nicest, and wealthiest place in all of Africa!

Too many people in charge building villas in Italy with taxpayer dollars slated for something else, like school books, roads, water services, electrical infrastructure, etc.

The only place I heard that had more graft and corruption than Kenya was Nigeria.