FLYING ON BORROWED TIME: Safarilink’s Decade of Incidents Puts Kenya’s Safari Skies on Trial

On the evening of Friday March 20, 2026, a De Havilland Dash 8 carrying 34 passengers and five crew skidded off the runway at Wilson Airport after landing from Kisumu. It was, by the reckoning of those on board, a matter of seconds from becoming an inferno. It was also, by any fair reckoning of the record, anything but a surprise.

Vihiga Senator Godfrey Osotsi, who was among the 39 occupants of the aircraft operated by ALS Limited on behalf of Safarilink Aviation, later posted on Facebook shortly after 11pm to tell Kenya he was alive.

He praised the pilot for steering the Dash 8 off the sealed surface and forcing it to stall on the grass near the intersection of Runways 07 and 14, thereby preventing what he described as a catastrophic fire.

What he did not praise was anyone at Wilson Airport itself: no ambulance came. No emergency response team materialised. Kenya Airports Authority confirmed the aircraft remained on site while recovery efforts were ongoing, and said operations at the airport continued normally.

For Senator Osotsi, the ordeal did not come out of nowhere. Eight days earlier, on March 12, he had stood in the Senate chamber and listed five pointed questions about the state of Wilson Airport’s runway, drainage, rescue and firefighting facilities, air traffic systems and power backup. Nobody answered them before his plane nearly burned.

That gap between the warning and the disaster is the story of Safarilink and Wilson Airport in miniature: alarm bells that ring loudly, followed by institutional silence, followed by another incident.

Kenya Insights has reconstructed the airline’s safety record over more than a decade and found a pattern that Kenya’s civil aviation establishment has consistently failed to confront.

THE AIRLINE THEY TRUSTED TO FLY THEM TO PARADISE

Safarilink Aviation Limited, headquartered at Wilson Airport and carrying the IATA code F2, was founded in 2004 to do something deceptively simple: fly tourists to the Maasai Mara and back.

Over two decades it built a reputation as the premium domestic carrier for safari-bound travellers, with scheduled and charter routes connecting Nairobi to remote game reserve airstrips across the country.

Its current fleet includes several Cessna 208B Grand Caravans and De Havilland Canada Dash 8 variants, and the airline carries tens of thousands of passengers a year, many of them foreign visitors whose first and last impression of Kenya’s aviation infrastructure is formed aboard a Safarilink flight.

That image of reliability is not without foundation.

Safarilink has never lost a single paying passenger or crew member in a crash of its own aircraft. Against the backdrop of African aviation more broadly, that is a record worth noting.

The problem is the growing list of serious incidents that surrounds it, incidents that in other jurisdictions would have prompted regulatory intervention, public inquiries and fleet audits, but which in Kenya have been absorbed into the national conversation and then forgotten, one after another, until the next one arrives.

A CHRONOLOGY OF CLOSE CALLS

December 2007: The Apron Collision at Wilson

The airline’s first documented serious incident occurred even before it had firmly established its safari routes. On 12 December 2007, a Cessna 208B Grand Caravan registered 5Y-SLA sustained substantial damage at Wilson Airport in a ground collision on the apron involving a turning propeller from another aircraft.

No passengers were on board and no injuries resulted, but the episode exposed the congestion and ground handling risks that would shadow the airline for years to come.

August 2019: Wildebeest on the Runway at Kichwa Tembo

The most cinematically dramatic entry in Safarilink’s incident log came in August 2019. Its De Havilland Canada DHC-8-200, registration 5Y-SLM, was on a scheduled flight from Wilson to Kichwa Tembo Airstrip deep in the Maasai Mara.

As the aircraft touched down, several wildebeest dashed onto the strip.

The left main landing gear collapsed on impact and the number one propeller was damaged. The aircraft was written off as a total loss. Two wildebeest died. Every passenger and crew member walked away.

The incident was widely reported internationally, presented as a spectacular collision with the African landscape, but the underlying questions it raised about wildlife management at remote airstrips received little regulatory follow-through.

October 2019: Tyre Burst at Wilson

Just weeks after the Mara wildlife strike, a Safarilink Cessna Caravan, registration 5Y-SLJ, skidded off the runway at Wilson Airport after a tyre burst on landing from Lamu. Ten passengers and two crew members were on board. None were injured.

The Kenya Civil Aviation Authority closed the runway for 30 minutes while the aircraft was towed clear. The KCAA called the incident ‘regrettable.’

What it did not call it was part of a pattern, even though it followed a Silverstone Air wheel incident and preceded a second Safarilink tyre failure on a Dash 8 within days, prompting the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office to issue a travel advisory warning Britons to scrutinise the safety records of airlines operating from Wilson Airport.

March 5, 2024: Mid-Air Collision Over Nairobi National Park

This is the incident that should have changed everything and did not change enough. At 09:34 on the morning of March 5, 2024, Safarilink Flight 053, a Dash 8-315 registered 5Y-SLK, climbed out of Wilson Airport’s Runway 14 bound for Ukunda with 39 passengers and five crew.

Simultaneously, a Cessna 172M registered 5Y-NNJ, operated by the Ninety-Nines Flying School and based at Wilson, was conducting touch-and-go circuit training on Runway 07. Air traffic control had issued see-and-avoid instructions to both crews.

The aircraft collided. The Dash 8’s crew heard a loud bang, felt severe yaw and levelled off, eventually returning safely to Wilson with part of the right horizontal stabiliser’s de-icing boot torn away.

The Cessna spun out of control and fell into Nairobi National Park, 1.6 nautical miles from the airport perimeter.

The instructor pilot, 25 years old and holding a Commercial Pilot’s Licence, and the 20-year-old student pilot with 49 total hours in his logbook were both killed on impact. Their deaths remain the only passenger or crew fatalities ever linked to a Safarilink flight.

Kenya’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Department launched an investigation and issued a preliminary report. As of March 2026, a final report had not been publicly released.

The AAID noted that ATC had issued see-and-avoid instructions and that the Dash 8 crew reported what appeared to be clear traffic before impact.

The fundamental question of how Wilson Airport’s congested mixed-use airspace, shared daily by commercial turboprops, training aircraft and private planes operating under visual flight rules, can be made safe remains unanswered.

December 28, 2024: ALS Dash 8 Runway Mishap at Wilson

Less than a year before the March 2026 excursion, an ALS-operated Dash 8, registration 5Y-MRE, experienced a landing mishap at Wilson when its main tyres burst, temporarily closing the runway. No injuries were reported.

The significance of this incident lies partly in the aircraft: ALS, the same operator that would the following year handle Flight 090 on behalf of Safarilink, was already registering incidents at the very airport where another of its aircraft would come to grief.

THE NIGHT A SENATOR’S QUESTIONS CAME TRUE

The March 2026 runway excursion has a quality that separates it from those that came before: it was anticipated in formal legislative terms with extraordinary precision. On March 12, Senator Osotsi had asked the Standing Committee on Roads, Transportation and Housing for a statement covering the state of Wilson Airport’s runway, its drainage, its rescue and firefighting facilities, its air traffic control systems and its power backup installations.

He had asked for findings from investigations into recent accidents around Wilson. He had asked for timelines on the demolition of buildings rising above the prescribed height restrictions along the flight path.

His senatorial colleagues agreed with the thrust of his concerns.

Senate Majority Leader Aaron Cheruiyot, who represents Kericho, stated during the March 12 session that ‘any user of that airport must be concerned for their safety.’

He flagged the airport’s lax security arrangements and noted that runway repairs were progressing, in his phrase, ‘extremely slowly,’ such that planes on certain runways must overfly Lang’ata Road and the playing compound of Lang’ata Primary School during approach.

Marsabit Senator Mohamed Chute raised concerns about repairs to Runway 07 and called on airport management to appear before a Senate committee.

Mombasa Senator Faki Mwihaji cited encroachment by a developer who had constructed a playing field near the airport perimeter and blocked an emergency access road. Wajir Senator Mohamed Abass declared the airport ‘a disaster in waiting.’

Eight days later, Flight 090 arrived from Kisumu in rain and darkness. According to Senator Osotsi, writing from the scene that night, the runway was flooded and the lighting system was not functioning properly.

He noted that it is widely known that such conditions regularly force evening flights to divert to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, and he demanded to know why this particular flight had not been redirected. Kenya Airports Authority said operations at Wilson remained normal.

WHAT THE RECORD REVEALS

Examined as a body of evidence rather than a series of isolated episodes, Safarilink’s incident history reveals several recurring failure modes. Runway excursions are the most frequent category: the 2007 apron collision, the 2019 tyre burst, the ALS Dash 8 tyre failure in December 2024 and the March 2026 skid-off share a common geography, Wilson Airport, and a common theme, an aircraft leaving its intended surface.

The 2019 Mara wildebeest strike represents the hazard of operating into unsecured bush strips where wildlife management is inconsistent. The 2024 mid-air collision stands alone as an airspace management failure of the gravest kind.

What is notably absent from this list is the category of failure that most frequently features in African aviation fatality statistics: catastrophic mechanical failure leading to controlled-flight-into-terrain, or crew incapacitation in cruise.

Safarilink’s aircraft have largely performed as designed; the incidents have occurred at the margins, during takeoff, landing, ground operations and low-level flight near an airport that senators now describe as structurally inadequate.

That distinction matters for how regulators should respond, because it points away from Safarilink’s maintenance culture and toward the operating environment.

Wilson Airport is 97 years old. It was established in 1929 in what was then open land outside Nairobi.

The city has since grown around and over it. Buildings encroach on its perimeter. Developers obstruct emergency access roads. Runway 07 is under repair at a pace senators describe as incompatible with safety. Drainage fails in heavy rain. Evening lighting malfunctions.

And Nairobi’s upper airspace continues to mix commercial turboprops with training aircraft under visual-separation rules that, as March 2024 demonstrated, can have fatal consequences.

THE WET LEASE QUESTION

One detail of the March 2026 incident deserves specific scrutiny that it has not yet received. The aircraft that skidded off Wilson’s runway on Flight 090 was not owned or crewed by Safarilink in the conventional sense.

It was a De Havilland DHC-8-100, registration 5Y-BXI, operated by ALS Limited under a wet lease arrangement, meaning ALS provided not just the aircraft but also the pilots and cabin crew.

KAA’s statement confirmed that 5Y-BXI is an aircraft normally deployed for humanitarian operations on behalf of the World Food Programme and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The wet lease is a legitimate and common commercial arrangement in African aviation. But it raises questions that regulators and the public should be pressing Safarilink to answer: what are the standards by which it selects wet lease partners?

What oversight does it exercise over their crew training, recency and qualifications? Does it conduct its own safety audits of operators flying its routes under its brand? And when an ALS aircraft on a Safarilink flight number runs off the runway at an airport where another ALS aircraft had already suffered a tyre failure fifteen months earlier, what does the contractual framework require the airline to do?

WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN

The Kenya Civil Aviation Authority has repeatedly described itself as committed to international safety standards.

The Kenya Airports Authority issues statements after incidents confirming everyone is safe. Investigations are launched and preliminary reports are filed. Final reports, with binding recommendations, are slower to materialise.

The AAID’s investigation into the March 2024 mid-air collision has not produced a final public report as of the date of this publication, more than two years after two pilots died above Nairobi National Park.

Senator Osotsi has called for Wilson Airport to be closed and comprehensively upgraded before it resumes full operations.

Senate Majority Leader Cheruiyot has said something must change. Marsabit’s Chute wants management summoned before a committee.

These are the right instincts, but Kenya has heard similar demands before. The KCAA convened a closed-door meeting with Wilson-based operators after the 2019 tyre burst incidents. The UK government issued a travel warning. Airlines issued statements. And then the moment passed, until the next one.

What Kenya’s aviation sector requires is not another round of statements and closed sessions but a published, time-bound action plan for Wilson Airport’s runway, drainage, lighting and emergency response infrastructure; a public final report on the March 2024 mid-air collision; an enforceable framework for wet lease safety oversight; and meaningful wildlife management standards at bush airstrips that receive commercial passenger traffic.

Safarilink, for its part, should publish the safety audit criteria it applies to wet lease operators and confirm what additional measures it has taken since March 2024.

Thirty-nine passengers survived March 20. Two pilots did not survive March 5, 2024. The arithmetic of Kenya’s aviation near-misses is still, for now, tolerable. The question is how much longer that tolerance can reasonably be extended before the luck runs out.