Kenya suffers second notable air disaster in a week - helicopter crash causes los of Kenyan Internal Security Minister and his Assistant , as well as four other people on the chopper

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/06/201261075823680347.html

Kenya minister among helicopter crash victims

Helicopter carrying internal security minister George Saitoti, his deputy and four others crashes near Nairobi. Last Modified: 10 Jun 2012 12:24 inShare15 Email Print Share Feedback

There is no word on the cause of the crash, in which six people were killed [Al Jazeera]

Kenya's minister for internal security, who once served as the country's vice president, and his deputy are among six people who died when a police helicopter crashed near the capital, according to Kenyan officials. A spokesman said Raila Odinga, the Kenyan prime minister, had been informed of the deaths of George Saitoti, his internal security minister, and Orwa Ojode, his deputy, on Sunday. "We have lost a cabinet minister, his assistant and their bodyguards and the pilots," a police source told AFP news agency. The accident occurred in the Ngong hills on the outskirts of the Kenyan capital, a police source told AFP, adding that the reason for the crash was not immediately clear. Prime Minister Raila Odinga said investigations into the cause of the crash had started and that the cabinet would hold a special session on the incident. "This is a terrible tragedy that has struck our country this morning. Nobody knows exactly the cause of this accident. That is why experts will carry out investigations," Odinga told reporters at the scene of the crash. "We will do everything possible to ensure we find we find out the cause of this accident, but for now it is just an accident." Al Jazeera's Peter Greste, reporting from Nairobi, said that the area was notorious for bringing down aircraft and that the weather at the moment was quite overcast. "It wouldn't be surprising if there was some sort of pilot error or mechanical failure," said Greste. Witnesses at the scene reported seeing charred bodies, while images of the cracsh scene showed the helicopter reduced to twisted metal. Powerful politician Saitoti, who was a long-serving vice president under former president Daniel Arap Moi, was expected to be a presidential candidate in elections to be held by March next year. An ally of President Mwai Kibaki, Saitoti was the leading government voice against al-Shabab, the Somali armed group against which Kenyan forces have been conducting operations inside Somalia since October. He often visited the scenes of grenade attacks carried out by al-Shabab inside Kenya in retaliation and had vowed that Kenya would crush the group. Our correspondent said that while most people in the country were still waking up to the news that Saitoti was dead, he suspected that some would not accept that his death appeared to have been accidental. "Saitoti was one of the most powerful and prominent politicians in the country... Inevitably [Kenyans] will see this as a political assassination because of his powerful position," said Greste.