• James Macharia, a Parliament employee, said the plane was just beginning to leave the ground when the engines went quiet.
• Fifty passengers and five crew members survived the accident.
The engines of the Silverstone Air plane failed before it skidded off the Wilson Airport runway during the yesterday’s 9am accident, a passenger has said.
James Macharia, a Parliament employee, said the plane was just beginning to leave the ground when the engines went quiet.
“We couldn't do anything but scream. We thank God for saving our lives,” Macharia said.
Fifty passengers and five crew members survived the accident.
Macharia spoke to the Star yesterday as he waited for another aircraft from Wilson to Mombasa.
“I will now go to Malindi. I am not going to Lamu again since I have been forced to reschedule my plans,” he said.
Witnesses at the airport said that the Fokker 50 5y-IZO aircraft had challenges on an attempt to take off.
“The right wing dipped before the crash, which showed that one of the engines might have failed. The plane has two engines," a pilot told the Star on Friday.
Another passenger who did not want to be named said that two were critically injured.
"We did not have time to do anything apart from screaming. After the plane stalled, we opened the doors and jumped out, leaving everything in the aircraft," she said.
"You can see some have continued with their journeys while others have cancelled everything,” she said.
Silverstone Air officials said nine passengers were injured but refused to respond to media questions.
“The passengers and crew were safely disembarked and we are currently working with the relevant authorities to assess the situation,” Silverstone Air account manager Sheila Muturi told journalists in Nairobi.
She was briefing the media on the incident following the Friday accident.
"If we had the documents to show the maintenance history we would have shown you. But we didn't carry," she said.
Amos Kiprop, a groundsman said that all emergency teams arrived immediately after the accident.
“I saw only one ambulance leave the gate behind the airport. The gate was closed but the fire team had to cut it fast to open. I believe very few people might have been taken to hospital using the ambulance,” Kiprop said.
The Star has established that the plane was manufactured in 1992 by Fokker aviation of Netherlands.
It first entered service with Icelandair Domestic and was commissioned by Silverstone from Air Iceland in 2017.
The Fokker 50 is a turboprop-powered airliner, designed as a refinement of and successor to the highly successful Fokker F27 Friendship.