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They say lightning never strikes the same place twice, but for Mama Celina Keter of Kamasian Ward in Kipkelion West, plane crashes have claimed two of her sons.
The Sunday Ethiopian Boeing 737 MAX 8 crash claimed the widow’s youngest son, Cosmas Kipng'etich Rogony.
The news caused the aging woman shock. She ended up at Siloam Hospital.
Kipng'etich’s death occurred 19 years after the death of her other son Richard Rogony, a Kenya Airways crew member who in January 30, 2000 died in the Airbus A310 crash in Ivory Coast.
The victim’s elder brother, Philip Mason, said the family received the news with profound sadness.
"We don't even know how to break the news to the other elderly family members. This is because the death of Cosmas comes 19 years after his brother Richard died in the Ivory Coast plane crash," said Eng Mason.
Mason, who is also the Kericho Agriculture Executive, said Kipng'etich was a medical engineer and was in Ethiopia to oversee the installation of medical equipment.
"My brother had been in Ethiopia for the last two weeks installing medical equipment. His job took him to many African countries," he said.
Kipng'etich's hard work was evident through the construction of a modern house for his ageing mother.
Kipng'etich, who was in his early 30s, studied Biomedical Engineering at Technical University of Mombasa after sitting his Kenya Certificate of Secondary Examination (KCSE) at Taita Towett Secondary School.
"The death of my brother, who has left a three-year-old girl, comes at a time when he was planning to formalise his marriage," said Mason.
Kipng'etich’s death in the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash has an eerie semblance to that of his brother Richard, who perished in the Kenya Airways’ Airbus A310-300 which crashed into the sea off the coast of Côte d'Ivoire, shortly after take-off from Félix Houphouët-Boigny International Airport in Abidjan.
Richard was among the 179 people who died in the Kenya Airways flight 431, an international scheduled Abidjan–Lagos–Nairobi passenger service.
In a May 9, 2017 Facebook post, Kipng'etich demonstrated his fascination with airplanes by posting a video demonstrating how jets were assembled in Peeble, Ohio.
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