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Mombasa Air Safari Flight 203

28 Oct 2025 · Near Kwale, Kwale County, Kenya

Cessna 208B Grand Caravan · Crashed en route, under investigation

From Ukunda Airstrip (UKA) to Kichwa Tembo Airport, Narok County, Kenya

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Event

NTSB case
GAA26WA015
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
Unknown · led by another country; figures from NTSB notifications
Event fatalities
11 · all aircraft and ground
Ground fatalities
0
Occupants
11
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
Airline
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
RRV203
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-CCA
Onboard fatalities
11
Route
From Ukunda Airstrip (UKA)To Kichwa Tembo Airport, Narok County, Kenya
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
Unknown
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
Takeoff
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
Unknown or undetermined
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

No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.

Approximate · Estimated position: Kwale, near the place the Wikipedia article names. Not the accident site.

From the Wikipedia article

Mombasa Air Safari Flight 203 was a domestic flight from Ukunda Airport in Kwale County to Kichwa Tembo Airport in Narok County, Kenya. The Cessna 208 Caravan crashed on 28 October 2025 near Kwale, killing all 11 people on board.

Accident

Mombasa Air Safari could not confirm at which time Flight 203 departed Ukunda Airport, since the pilot failed to contact the departure tower. The aircraft crashed at around 8:30 am local time (05:30 UTC) while en route on a two-hour flight to Kichwa Tembo Airport, located near the Serengeti National Park, a popular tourist destination. Air traffic control tried to contact the aircraft for over half an hour, until the crash site was located about 10 kilometers from the town of Kwale, a hilly and forested area where bad weather, including heavy fog, was present at the time of the accident. Photos show the aircraft wreckage scattered near the crash site and on fire. Rescue services managed to reach the crash site after sunrise. On October 29 recovery operations at the crash site continued, also with the use of an excavator.

Investigation and cause

Investigation

The Kenya Civil Aviation Authority sent investigators to the crash site and started an investigation to find out the causes of the crash. Stephen Orinde, Kwale County Commissioner, declared that investigators are focusing on adverse weather as the possible main cause of the accident. Mombasa Air Safari is cooperating with the aviation authorities in the crash investigation. The KCAA stated that a preliminary report about the accident will be released in 30 days.

On December 3, 2025, the Aircraft Accident Investigation Department of Kenya released a preliminary report on the accident. The investigation has so far found out that the aircraft impacted terrain in a nose down attitude and at a high speed, which led to the aircraft debris to be buried to a maximum of 2.2 meters underground. The report also confirmed that harsh weather conditions were present in the area at the time of the crash. The Kenya Civil Aviation Authority is continuing the investigation and will release a final report once it will be finished.

Text from the Wikipedia article “Mombasa Air Safari Flight 203” (revision 1348142752, 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

Sources

Wikipedia article: Mombasa Air Safari Flight 203
Article
Mombasa Air Safari Flight 203
Revision
1348142752 · 2026-04-10 · retrieved 2026-09-18
Wikidata
Q136659268
Licence
Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record GAA26WA015
Event ID
20251029201934
Case number
GAA26WA015
Dataset
full-current
Source SHA-256
5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Where each value comes from
Record
Wikipedia article "Mombasa Air Safari Flight 203" (page 81450729, revision 1348142752); merged with NTSB case GAA26WA015 (events / aircraft)
Date
Wikipedia infobox: date
Place and country
Wikipedia infobox: site
Map position
Wikipedia: place the Wikipedia infobox site links (Wikidata 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 GAA26WA015
Operation
airline flight number in the infobox
Fatalities
Reviewed (2026-09-19): Kenya AAID Preliminary Report No. 01/10/2025 (5Y-CCA), https://aaid.transport.go.ke/sites/default/files/2025-11/Preliminary%20Report-5Y-CCA.pdf
Ground fatalities
Reviewed (2026-09-19): Kenya AAID Preliminary Report No. 01/10/2025 (5Y-CCA), https://aaid.transport.go.ke/sites/default/files/2025-11/Preliminary%20Report-5Y-CCA.pdf
Summary
Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (3)
  • One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Mombasa Air Safari Flight 203" and NTSB case GAA26WA015, 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.
  • Death toll settled: the NTSB record (GAA26WA015) gives 1 and the Wikipedia article 11; Kenya AAID Preliminary Report No. 01/10/2025 (5Y-CCA) gives 11. AAID: 11 on board (1 pilot + 10 passengers), all fatal, and 0 on the ground. The NTSB's 1 is a notification-record error, likely counting only the pilot. This is a preliminary report, but the count is unlikely to change.
  • No bulk values were replaced by the NTSB case API.