JKIA fire unmasked false security behind airport ‘reforms’

Fifteen years to the day al-Qaida terrorists bombed the American Embassy in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam leaving 212 people dead and hundreds wounded, Kenya’s emergency response team was, again, caught flat-footed yesterday following a fire at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

Although it is too early to determine exactly what caused the fire, early indications are that the airport did not have the necessary capacity to handle the emergency.

This is inexcusable considering that the start of the fire might have been contained easily long before the big fire-trucks were wheeled into action. Sadly, the lethargy that has, over time, come to be associated with many a parastatal came into play and the fire was allowed to spread until it became a huge conflagration. The fact that there was no loss of life and that it did not destroy more property than it did owes nothing to the airports’ prevention or fire-fighting abilities. True, the airport authority prides itself on having a water hydrant every 50 yards. But they failed to be of much use when they were most needed, apparently, because they did not have water.

Reports that the immigration and KAA staff who first noticed the fire were busy shooing the visitors away from the immigration office where the fire started while leaving it to become an inferno paints a picture of people who did not have a clue about what to do in such an emergency. That suggests that the airport did not hold regular fire-fighting drills as required by IATA. A most charitable view of the whole sad situation would conclude that the airport authorities were well trained to handle fires that might break out during aircraft landings or takeoffs, but never imagined the kind incident where the emergency was in-doors. The investigations that were promised should delve deep into our airports’ systems and procedures to unearth the reasons behind the poor response and ensure that wherever breakdowns are found they are fixed.

In short, the investigations should not be used as a tool to cover-up as has happened in too many incidents across the country even when people have lost their lives.

The promises routinely made after every major emergency that the authorities will put a quick-response team, or teams, together, and equip them to do a sterling job, should be interrogated with the aim of finding out just what stands in the way of its formation. Should such an inquiry establish the need to have the various arms of the armed forces working together to maximise the use of specialised equipment, then so be it. The country’s security is more important than any inter-departmental rivalries that may come into play.

It is unfortunate that building a new terminal and associated works generates more excitement than maintaining the old ones. Or how else can the buzz that emanates from the authority whenever it is time to award a fresh construction contract be explained?

It is ironic that the fire broke out the very day the British government was donating security equipment to the airport, considering that the threat in this instance was from within. Equally ironic is that JKIA was recently named in the African heat of the World Routes Airport Marketing Award 2013. This shows that the airport must pay greater attention to the less glamorous side of business — safety and maintenance. Although it is too early to pinpoint the cause of the fire, negligence cannot be ruled out.