Report reveals KQ cover-up of fire incident in plane with 142 passengers on board

A fresh audit has revealed a subtle cover up of a fire incident that affected one of the Kenya Airways Boeing 787 Dreamliners in February.

Pilots were forced to make an emergency landing in Dar es Salaam after one of the plane's engines burst in flames, 35 minutes after it took off from JKIA with 142 passengers and 10 crew on board

KQ also covered up failures by the Control Centre that contributed to the poor management of the incident.

A Kenya Airways plane Pulse Live Kenya

While addressing the media, KQ CEO Sebastian Mikosz downplayed the severity of the incident further masking the emergency landing as a precaution taken by the pilots.

"The crew shut down the engine as per procedure and diverted to Dar es Salaam.

"Our engineers traveled to Dar es Salaam to assess the engine and determined that it needed to be changed," Mikosz stated.

Faulty Engine

According to the new report by KQ's safety department, the crew received an alert that the engine was overheating and in a matter of seconds the fire alert went off.

In addition, the crew could not contact KQ's Operations Control Centre and had to do so through a third party.

The control centre could not locate the problematic plane but proceeded to instruct the pilots to return to JKIA.

Due to the communication break-down the crew made a decision to land the plane in Tanzania.

Kenya Airways CEO Sebastian Mikosz ece-auto-gen

"The report faulted the OCC for advising the pilot to return to Nairobi when they did not even know the exact location of the plane, and also for not having a checklist to refer to on the next course of action when an aircraft has an in-flight problem," the report outlined.