Fly-SAX Flight 102
Cessna 208B Grand Caravan · Controlled flight into terrain, caused by pilot and ATC error
From Kitale Airport (KTL) to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (NBO)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR18WA165
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Final · AAID final report, 3 Aug 2019
- Event fatalities
- 10 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 10
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 0 serious · 0 minor (NTSB)
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Charter & commuter
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Not recorded
Cessna 208B Grand Caravan
- Flight
- B5102
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 208
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- 5Y-CAC
- Operator
- Fly-SAX
- Onboard fatalities
- 10
- Route
- From Kitale Airport (KTL)To Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (NBO)
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 129: Foreign
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- En route
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Miscellaneous
- Personnel issues › Experience/knowledge
- Environmental issues › Operating environment
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
On 5 June 2018, Fly-SAX Flight 102, a Cessna 208B Grand Caravan operating a domestic flight in Kenya between Kitale Airport and Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Nairobi, crashed into Elephant Hill, a peak in the Aberdare Mountains, killing all 10 people on board. The investigation ruled that the crash was a case of controlled flight into terrain, caused by the crew's decision of flying instrument flight rules at an altitude below the minimum one for that region.
Accident
The aircraft took off at 4:05 pm local time from Kitale Airport for its flight to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, where it was scheduled to land on runway 24. After take off the aircraft climbed to flight level FL110, and maintained that altitude. The crew continued the flight flying instrument flight rules (IFR), even though the minimum altitude for flying IFR in the area was flight level FL150. The aircraft then reached the Aberdare Range, whose highest peaks exceeded the crusing altitude of the aircraft, and shortly after, at 5:02 pm local time, contact with Flight 102 was lost. The aircraft impacted Elephant Hill at an altitude of 3645 m, 11 meters below the top of the mountain, in an area covered by bamboo, and at a speed of 288 km/h. All 10 people on board were killed on impact and the aircraft was destroyed.
Due to the remoteness of the area and bad weather, rescue teams reached the crash site and discovered the plane's wreckage two days after the crash. The search was initially halted on the evening of 6 June, just to be restarted on the next morning. Aerial and ground search teams were deployed. During search operations a vehicle of the Kenyan Red Cross had an accident, which injured 11 people, of which three seriously.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The final report on the accident, released by the Kenyan Ministry of Transport in 2019, ruled the crash as a controlled flight into terrain (CFIT), caused by errors made by the crew which decided to continue flying instrument flight rules at an altitude below the minimum one of the area to fly IFR. Data collected by the investigators showed that the aircraft's terrain awareness and warning system started to send alerts in the cockpit six seconds before the data stopped recording, and that the aircraft impacted terrain after another minute, giving the pilots enough time to react and avoid colliding with terrain. The investigation found out that also the airline's poor crew resource management played an important role in the accident, and adding this to the fact that both pilots were not sufficiently trained regarding CFIT situations, caused the crew to not react in time to avoid the danger. Errors were also made by the air traffic control. In fact air traffic controllers at Eldoret International Airport, with whom the crew of Flight 102 was in contact, were used to let planes fly under the minimum safe altitude for the area, like in this case. Also the controller operating that day had a lack of situational awareness about the position of Flight 102.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Fly-SAX Flight 102” (revision 1352724185, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
NTSB narrative
On June 5, 2018, about 1705 local time, a Cessna 208, 5Y-CAC, collided into a mountain in the Aberdare mountain range near Njabini, Kenya. The 2 pilots and 8 passengers were fatally injured; the airplane was destroyed. The airplane was owned and operated by East African Safari Air Express. The flight was operated under the pertinent civil regulations of the government of Kenya. The flight departed Kitale Airport, Njabini, Kenya about 1605 local time with a planned destination of Nairobi-Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Nairobi, Kenya.
The investigation is under the jurisdiction of the Government of Kenya. This report is for information purposes only and contains only information released by the Government of Kenya. Further information pertaining to this accident may be obtained from:
The Chief Investigator of Air Accidents, Kenya
Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure
P.O. Box 52692-00200
Nairobi
Kenya
Tel.: +254 770 111 333 or +254 722 778 773
E-mail: ps@transport.go.ke, directoraai@transport.go.ke
Fax: 254 2 822195
Website: www.transport.go.ke
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
Wikipedia article: Fly-SAX Flight 102
- Article
- Fly-SAX Flight 102
- Revision
- 1352724185 · 2026-05-05 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q134437548
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record WPR18WA165
- Event ID
- 20180608X35120
- Case number
- WPR18WA165
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Fly-SAX Flight 102" (page 79812893, revision 1352724185); merged with NTSB case WPR18WA165 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date; matches the Aircraft Accident Investigation Department (AAID), State Department for Transport, Ministry of Transport, Kenya final report
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports); gaps and aircraft details from NTSB record WPR18WA165
- Operation
- Aircraft Accident Investigation Department (AAID), State Department for Transport, Ministry of Transport, Kenya final report
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities; matches the Aircraft Accident Investigation Department (AAID), State Department for Transport, Ministry of Transport, Kenya final report
- Ground fatalities
- Aircraft Accident Investigation Department (AAID), State Department for Transport, Ministry of Transport, Kenya final report
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (3)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Fly-SAX Flight 102" and NTSB case WPR18WA165, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this event outside the United States Wikipedia's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- Checked against the Aircraft Accident Investigation Department (AAID), State Department for Transport, Ministry of Transport, Kenya final report (2019-08-03) on 2026-09-18. The report states the same date, flight number, fatalities, registration, departure, destination and damage. Taken from the report: ground fatalities and type of operation. Shown unchanged where the report gives another value or wording: operator (shown Fly-SAX; report East African Safari Air Express Ltd). Not checked: place, crash-site coordinates and aircraft type.