Foreign and local experts have been called in to eliminate any possibility that Wednesday's fire incident at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport was an act of terrorism.
The presence of the officials came a few hours after US President`Baracvk Obama called President Uhuru Kenyatta and offered assistance in the investigations into the incident as well as reconstruction of the terminal.
The county's anti-terror unit officials were joined at the airport by their counterparts from the US government to assist in the investigations into the fire incident which has grounded many of the operations for the sec on day. Limited services resumed late Wednesday and yesterday.
The head of the anti-terrorism unit Boniface Mwaniki, the JKIA CID boss Joseph Ngisa and the US officials were among those who sifted through the debris of the fire to seek for clues for the fire which started in an office in the immigration office before spiraling out of control.
The CID director Ndegwa Muhoro, senior airport security officers and officials from the Kenya Airport Authority were at a separate meeting where they discussed the ongoing investigations.
Transport Cabinet Secretary Engineer Michael Kamau yesterday confirmed the involvement of the US officers and others from 'other friendly nations" who had been asked to assist in establishing the cause of the fire
The National Intelligence Service and police had by yesterday established that several airport security passes which give the holder access to different highly sensitive sections of the airport were missing. They were trying to establish whether these passes were in the hands of past employees.
If it is established that these passes were in the hands of unauthorized personnel, it might raise even more questions about the security status of the airport, the busiest in the region.
Kenya Airports Authority chief security officer Eric Kiraithe said he was already conducting an audit of how many passes were still unaccounted for and who may have them.
"We have been conducting an audit on passes into the airport but it would not have been possible for anyone to enter restricted areas. When someone is sacked by any of the service providers, we always have to find out more about the sacking and find the access passes," Kiraithe said. He could however not explain why such passes were not surrendered by the individuals once they stopped being employees.
Other sources said that in the last one month, more than 130 people had been intercepted as they attempted to enter the airport terminals using forged documents.
The KAA general manager Stephen Gichuki yesterday blamed the building's 'design and limited access' for the failure by the airport fire brigade to put out the fire before it spread to become an inferno.
Flights started leaving and arriving at the airport yesterday as airlines tried to reduce the backlog of passengers caused by the delay due to the fire. Two flights with passengers landed at the airport yesterday morning and were received by KAA and Immigration staff who strove to clear them as quickly as possible.
Kenya Airways yesterday said 17 flights were scheduled to depart from the airport yesterday. The flights included those destined for Dubai, Entebbe, Kigali, London, Amsterdam, Johannesburg, Juba, Paris, Dar es Salaam, Accra, Kinshasa, Bombay and Bangkok.
Passengers were advised proceed to Unit 3 that survived the blaze while the Cargo Centre was also being prepared to handle international departures and arrivals.
KQ Chief Executive Officer Titus Naikuni said that a help desk had been erected outside Unit 3 to assist any passengers. Priority was, however, being given to passengers whose tickets had been confirmed.
The situation at the airport was slowly returning to normal although the burned building were still smouldering.
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