Two Embraer’s ERJ-190 of Kenya Airways collided today in front of the airline´s hangar at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in the capital Nairobi. No injuries were reported.
The aircraft with the registration 5Y-FFF and 5Y-KYR were up for C4 Check which is a major maintenance of the engine. After the maintenance, the planes have to undergo Engine Run which is throttling the engine to the take off level while brakes and chokes are on.
Kenya Airways doesn’t have an engine run bay so the maintenance team use an open space right in front of the hangar. So, looks like the aircraft 5Y-KYR was doing this test when lost the brakes and hit the 5Y-FFF causing several damages.
Kenya Civil Aviation Authority Director-General Gilbert Kibe said that airport safety officials are investigating the incident:
“We will find out what went wrong and we will mitigate to ensure it does not happen again”
and confirm that the planes collided while undergoing maintenance.
He added that the disruption of services at JKIA would be inevitable:
“Some flights will likely be cancelled. Every aeroplane has something that it’s doing every day. If two are not available, that will really mess up the schedule”,
“We hope that the flights will come back to normal as soon as possible”
All Images by: David Maina Ndung’u