By Juma Kwayera
NAIROBI, KENYA: Revelations that only six of 15 aircraft owned by the Kenya Police Air Wing (KPAW) are serviceable sums up the poor conditions in the department.
An inquiry into the helicopter crash that killed former Internal Security minister George Saitoti and five others in July last year concludes there is a “poor safety culture” at the Air Wing which, it says, “operates with no internal safety mechanism, self-regulation or exercise of regulatory power by the Kenya Civil aviation authority”. The final report on the inquiry notes that KPAW is an important security formation, but its compliance with airworthiness of the aircraft under its keep is wanting. The report calls for its reorganisation.
“The management and personnel of the KPAW recognise that their aircraft are State-owned and, therefore, assume that they are exempt from the provisions of the Civil Aviation Act,” says the report released yesterday.
KPAW owns seven aeroplanes and eight helicopters “out of which two aeroplanes and four helicopters were serviceable at the time of the inquiry.” In addition, the air wing’s team has the bare minimum training and does not subscribe to accepted safety flight standards set by the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority.
Evidence presented to the commission shows pilots and maintenance engineers are ill-equipped to prevent air accidents, as the unit lacks structured training for its employees. It says: “The commission took note of the finding by the Committee of Aviation Experts… that there are no published approved procedures to cover maintenance, quality management, and training as well as safety management for the organisation.”
“Type rating training,” it adds, “is often private arrangements between KPAW pilots and other pilots outside the organisation.”
KPAW is further faulted for disinclination to crew resource management training to complement the pilots’ technical skills with non-technical skills deemed key to air travel. The training enables the pilot to develop and maintain teamwork through communication skills, leadership, cooperation and followership.
One of the reasons the aircraft owned by KPAW is in deplorable conditions is Government bureaucracy in procurement, which deprives the unit of the capacity to maintain and service the fleet and even pay staff competitively.
It notes that lack of operational and financial autonomy, “coupled with the cumbersome Government procurement process has contributed to the state of unserviceable aircraft and the inability to secure the required maintenance arrangement for the subject helicopter in a timely manner.”
This is besides the absence of a clear safety oversight authority, which leads to sub-standard practices that compromise safety.
