Crash: Another body of Ugandan soldier found

By Cyrus Ombati

Rescuers have sighted a body of one of the missing Ugandan soldiers at the scene of the burnt chopper on Mt Kenya.

Efforts to retrieve the body were hampered by rain early Wednesday morning.

The rescuers who include officials from the military, police, Kenya Wildlife Services, Kenya Forest and locals had arrived at the scene the when it started to rain heavily forcing them to leave.

Military spokesman Bogita Ongeri said the rescuers could not disturb the scene on Tuesday because the chopper was still burning and there were fears that some of the weapons the victims were carrying could explode.

“They have seen the third body there but will remove it later when the weather is friendly. The search is still ongoing,” said Ongeri.

This brings to three, the number of the soldiers who have been confirmed dead following the crash that happened on Sunday involving three Ugandan fighter choppers.

Two other bodies were removed on Tuesday and eight soldiers rescued. On Monday seven soldiers were rescued bringing the total of those who survived the crash to fifteen. Those rescued were flown to Nairobi and officials say three are unaccounted for. 

Uganda President Yoweri Museveni has formed a team to investigate the incident while President Kibaki has pledged to help in establishing the cause of the crash.

Bad weather was initially blamed for the crash that happened on Sunday evening. The three choppers were part of a fleet of four that was headed for Baidoa when they went missing.  Only one made it to Garissa as scheduled.

One of the choppers was sighted on Monday morning and seven soldiers rescued before they were taken to the Nanyuki air strip. The soldiers had sent a signal to the Department of Defence headquarters for help.

The other two were sighted on Tuesday.

One Mi-24 attack helicopter crash-landed in Castle Forest, about 14 kilometres from Kimunye Forest Service in Mt. Kenya.

Experts said initial findings pointed to pilot error and bad weather as the cause that led to the crash even as the search for the two others went on.

Officials said the pilots were new to the terrain and may have followed a wrong route and ran into turbulent weather in the mountain.

Questions were being raised as to why and how all the three crashed nearly the same area and time and why it took long for them to be located or the incident to be realized.

Initial findings said the four choppers with 28 crew left a base in Soroti in Eastern Uganda Sunday for Eldoret.

They were then scheduled to land in Nanyuki for refueling before heading for Garissa and Wajir.

Reports said the choppers arrived in Nanyuki at 4pm and later left for Garissa where they were expected at about 6 pm.

But only helicopter number MI17 that landed successfully in Garissa and reported to have lost contact with the rest of the helicopters past 6 pm.

It took long for the rescuers to move into action to help those trapped in the forest in unexplained circumstances.

This was after a pilot of one of the affected three MI-23, which disappeared, radioed Department of Defence in Nairobi saying they were alive in the forest and needed urgent help.

The Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF) said a team of helicopters had left a base in the Ugandan city of Entebbe but that only one had landed in the Kenyan town of Garissa, where they were scheduled to refuel before flying on to Somalia.

The incident came at a time when the long-planned assault on Somalia’s southern port town of Kismayu by the Kenya Defence Forces and their Amisom allies is probably only days away in what will be a decisive week for Somalia.

The African Union force, which also includes Kenyan and Burundian troops, is planning an onslaught on Somalia's second biggest city Kismayu, which is a hub for the Islamist militants, before August 20.