By Philip Mwakio
A private light aircraft crashed Monday night in Lamu and killed three people including two Kenyan military personnel.
The reconnaissance plane enroute to unknown destination crashed upon take off from Manda Naval base airstrip.
Sources told The Standard that the plane, a privately chartered light aircraft operated by a civilian pilot had crashed at around midnight on Monday, killing three people who were on borad.
Unconfirmed reports say that the aircraft fell on a tree and was carrying two military personnel and two civilians.
The pilot whose identity has not been established is said to have been critically injured after the plane crashed a minute into flight. Military intelligence has secured the crash site on the navy base’s runway.
Kenya Defence Forces spokesman Col Cyrus Oguna said the light aircraft went down due to mechanical failures.
“Of those on board one survived. Three who include two members of our military did not make it. They died,” said Col Oguna.
Oguna said the civilian aircraft that had been hired by the military, went down as it flew through Hindi area near the Manda Naval base.
The Manda Naval Base is a strategic military installation manned by the Kenya Navy and the second largest of the Kenyan marine defences.
It is situated on the Kenyan mainland opposite Manda Island and adjacent to the proposed Lamu Port site.
The base is approximately 20 kilometres by road East of Mokowe jetty on the mainland and it is an hour’s boat ride to Lamu Island.
