The chopper that crashed at the Lake Nakuru National Park. Photo/SamGitau
Details are emerging that the pilot of the chopper that crashed into Lake Nakuru National Park could have been under the influence of alcohol.
The chopper had five people aboard, including the pilot, and the bodies have not been recovered.
Kenya Navy divers suspended the mission Saturday night to resume today (Sunday) morning.
Interviews with sources who had contact with the five in their last moments point to reckless partying which might have left the pilot drunk.
Sources at Jarika County lodge where the chopper had been parked told the Sunday Standard that the four checked into the hotel on Friday evening but did not spend the night there.
They left and sources at several popular joints in the town have admitted seeing them for a few minutes in their clubs.
Apparently, they were club-hobbing sampling the popular joints in the town which are usually lit every Friday as revelers turn into party animals.
Impeccable sources said the team was last seen at a popular club along the Nairobi-Nakuru highway where 'they had mad fun' until around 5:30 am.
The club is a den of alcohol lovers usually frequented by skimpily dressed university girls and old men ready to spend cash.
Sources at the club confirmed to a team of journalists from the Sunday Standard that actually the ill-fated four left there Saturday morning while 'looking drunk'.
“I had a brief chat with the pilot who was seated at the counter. He was drinking beer and appeared drunk. I called his friends to take him away to rest. He could not walk on his own and his friends had to hold him. They left the club at 5:30am,” a waiter at the club said.
At Jarika hotel, a security personnel told this writer the four were to sleep in the hotel on Friday evening before heading to Narok on Saturday.
"They were to spend the night here but did not do that. They came in the morning accompanied by the young woman," he said.
A Nakuru MP who was among the first to arrive at the Lake Nakuru National Park when the news of the crash spread told this writer: "You see what alcohol do, all this morning evil is due to alcohol."
Probed further, he said: "Wacha tutaongea hii maneno wacha kwanza watolewe."