What killed Gen. Oyite-Ojok?

Explosive. In this article, first published in the Daily Monitor in November 2006, we revisit the helicopter crash that killed a soldier and ended a regime.

On the morning of December 2, 1983, Oyite-Ojok prepared to fly to the Luweero Triangle. He was having some marriage problems with his wife, Bechi Oyite-Ojok and in a heated exchange she said, “Some of you are going but will not come back!” an angry but unwitting remark that she would regret for the rest of her life.

Oyite-Ojok then set off for the Parliamentary buildings to see the Minister of State for Security, Chris Rwakasisi, but did not find him there. Oyite-Ojok then joked with some presidential staff and asked whether any one wanted to go with him. They said they would have loved to but had much office work to do.
“I am sorry for you”, he said, “You have missed a free ride!”

About the helicopter
He then set off. The helicopter that he usually used --- a Bell Augusta 412 model equipped with an autopilot steering system --- was grounded at Entebbe Air Force Base and so he was to use the Bell 412 belonging to Captain Peter Oringi, who was the commander of the helicopter squadron.

As was the custom, since Oyite-Ojok was a top dignitary, the director of the air force, Major Alfred Otto, flew him. On that day, the co-pilot was Captain Harry Oluoch.

Oluoch was not trained as a pilot but as a ground engineer and airworthiness specialist, he had learned to fly. On board the helicopter that morning were: Major-General David Oyite-Ojok, the Chief of Staff; Major Alfred Otto, pilot and director of the air force; Captain Harry Oluoch, co-pilot; Major Stephen Abili, the Hungarian-trained Chief of Logistics and Engineering in the army; and Lt. Godfrey Kato Kiragga, acting Director of Military Intelligence.

Others were Lt. Colonel Wilson Okonga, Medical Superintendent, Mbuya Military Hospital; Captain Charles Kamara, the Israeli-trained technician in charge of the air force helicopter squadron; an unnamed photographer with the Ministry of Defence; and a Tanzanian Corporal called Friday who had fought as Oyite-Ojok’s aide in the 1978-79 Uganda-Tanzania war and who was the signaller aboard the helicopter that day.

At the time, there were rumours in Kampala that a tenth person on board the helicopter was a woman, a girlfriend of Oyite-Ojok, because Radio Uganda and the state-owned Uganda Times newspaper reported that in total, ten people died in the accident.

The helicopter set off for the Luweero Triangle. Oyite-Ojok had mapped out a strategic plan to defeat Yoweri Museveni’s NRA guerrillas once and for all, and he was going to lay it out to the field commanders.

The helicopter squadron commander, Captain Oringi, flew another Bell 412 helicopter, with Captain Peter Nyakairu as co-pilot. Oringi and Nyakairu landed at 11am in a hilly area called Kasozi in Luweero, 150kms north of Kampala. The two pilots had been flying in small 12-barrel, 107mm Katyusha guns to be used in combat against the NRA guerrillas.

Oyite-Ojok’s party landed shortly after and started a meeting with the field officers Lt. Col. John Ogole who was the Brigade commander, and Maj. Eric Odwar the commander of the Buffalo Battalion and Maj. Michael Kilama, commander of the Air and Seaborne Battalion from Tororo, both of which operated under Ogole’s overall command.

The fateful journey
The long meeting ended at about 6.30pm and the teams got ready to return to Kampala. Captain Kamara inspected the helicopters as he always did at Entebbe.
Kamara, who had trained for helicopters in Israel on maintenance and mainframes, always travelled with Oyite-Ojok on the same helicopter every time the chief of staff took to the air.

Some reports said the helicopters had carried large amounts of fuel on board, since there were no re-fuelling facilities. Captain Oringi and Captain Nyakairu took off first and the Bell Augusta 412 carrying Oyite-Ojok lifted off at 8.15pm.

However, within minutes of lifting off the ground, the aircraft suddenly nose-dived and plunged to the ground where it burst into flames, killing all on board. All were burnt beyond recognition except for the acting director of Military Intelligence, Lt. Kato Kiragga who was seated to the left while the helicopter tilted toward the right. Kiragga’s lower body was burnt but parts of his torso and upper limbs were intact.

The manufacturers of the helicopter, Bell of Texas in the United States, later sent investigators to Uganda who were joined by aviation safety crews from the Ugandan Civil Aviation Authority.

The combined investigation discovered that the rod, (the smaller propeller that rotates at the tail of helicopters and helps stabilise the craft during flight) had either been broken or damaged enough to later break off in the first few minutes of the return flight to Kampala.