Hi.

Sorry, the Kenya Airways crew was mis-informed.

To hit the tower during/after landing, they would have to have made a 90 degree turn off the runway, and then after travelling 3-400m or so, another 90 degree turn, and they would not have had enough energy left to strike the building with any force.

The tower is nowhere near the runway, and you could not hit the tower on landing unless you landed on the ramp, which they did not do.

I don't know the whole story, but I was there the day of the accident. I heard that they shut down one engine after takeoff, and landed with one engine at full power and taxied back to the ramp. The Jetlink press release says that they were in parking, and "just before they were chocked", or something like that, the brakes failed and the plane taxied at high speed into the tower.

They were in parking on the far side of the ramp from the tower, about 700m or so away, and would have needed that much acceleration room to hit the building at that force.

Accident: Jetlink Air CRJ1 at Kigali on Nov 12th 2009, throttle jam, impacted terminal after return

cliff
NBO