Sky was not the limit for pilot who flew Moi, Kibaki

May 19, this year, was a special and emotional day for retired Colonel James Gitahi. The day officially marked the end of his decorated flying career, having served for 44 years. Gitahi is not your ordinary aviator. He flew two sitting presidents while he was a pilot at the Kenya Air Force (KAF). He was the designated pilot for the late presidents Daniel Arap Moi for 17 years and Mwai Kibaki from 2002 to 2010.

To mark his farewell, Colonel Gitahi flew a plane for 30 minutes accompanied by a number of passengers including his wife. Yours truly was also part of the passengers. The flight took off from Wilson Airport to Masinga Dam and back. Landing back safely at Wilson Airport was an emotional affair as this was his last hour of official duties. He has spent over 18,000 hours flying aircraft ever since he started in the year 1979 at the KAF training college.

His wife, nominated Senator Betty Montet Gitahi, who was also a passenger on this final flight, couldn’t help but erupt into thanksgiving songs. Words alone could not explain her happiness as she was grateful to God for keeping her spouse safe over the years.

Montet shares how they met in 1982 while she was a student at the Government Secretarial College and Gitahi was a lieutenant at the Kenya Air Force having served for three years at that point. Their relationship blossomed and they married later that year.

Turning point

“We are now 41 years in marriage and proud parents of two children. Our first born daughter is a lawyer. She is married and they have given us two grand children aged nine and three years. Our son has followed in his father’s footsteps— he is a pilot working in Somalia. He recently got married to a pilot too,” she says.

Colonel Gitahi, who comes from a humble background and was raised in a village in Kitale, never dreamed of becoming a pilot. He only admired airplanes up in the sky. No one in his family or neighbourhood was a pilot. The seed was planted when he saw a plane by a far at an airstrip.

“After seeing the aircraft, I was convinced that I could also fly it. The first time I got near a plane was at the KAF training college. Learning to fly a plane require a lot of resources, which my family could not afford. At one point, while staying in Lodwar after completing my secondary education, I came across an advertisement that KAF was recruiting. I applied and was successful,” he says.

Having flown two presidents, Gitahi describes this as a humbling experience. “While flying the president, together with my co-pilot, I had to bear in mind that we were holding the fate of the country on air. At times I would go and brief the presidents. These interactions made me realise that a president is just like an ordinary person,” Colonel Gitahi recalls.

He shares how in 1984 he became a co-pilot to Colonel (Rtd) Hussein Farrah who is also one of the few esteemed pilots who flew the then president Moi. 

“At the time, Kenya did not have a specialised mode of air transport for the Head of State and had to rely on the DHC-5 Buffalo transport aircraft, which was acquired in the 1970s,” he recalls.

When Farrah retired in the early ‘90s, he handed over to Gitahi where the outgoing pilot went on to establish Bluebird Aviation, which offers air transport to private clients, government institutions as well as humanitarian organisations. Gitahi would fly President Moi in the only available aircraft until the government purchased the Fokker 70 Extended Range presidential aircraft, making him the first captain of the plane.

For Montet, she shares how her husband, being a designated pilot for presidents, had to shoulder many responsibilities.

“They would have long working hours. I had to wait until late night to hear from him and know whether they had landed safely. It was a lot of work. Just as the president never went on leave, it was same for my husband; he never went on leave throughout the time he worked for the two presidents from 1984 until 2010, when he handed over after retiring from KAF. The presidents would even call him personally when they wanted to fly urgently,” she reveals.

“Before he left every morning, I would pray for him. His career was full of challenges. Way back when he was at the Air Force, we saw a great number of pilots die— people who we had lived with as our neighbours and who would leave behind young families. As a pilot’s and a millitary officer’s wife, you had to be ready for anything. When he did his last landing, I fell short of words as it was so emotional that he made it on his last flight. Grateful that throughout his career, I never had people come to our house to break the sad news that he never made it. The tradition in the Air Force was that if one passed on while on duty, officers would come in uniform to break the news. As wives, we saw this as one of the biggest nightmares,” she says.

Montet reveals that the same happened to her current personal assistant whose husband, an instructor died in a plane crash. She mentions some of the mentors that led to her spouse’s success and gave him a chance including Colonel (Rtd) Hussein Farrah, the late Major General Nick Leshan and Brigadier Shikati who were both his mentors and instructors.

As a mother, a career woman, a leader and a military wife, Montet discloses that she had to balance and always be there for their two children when the husband was away for work. However, she thanks their close friends who always held their hands during those times.

Montet says that he got the position of a nominated senator after working hard for her party (ODM) during the 2022 presidential campaign as she was chosen as one of the members of the presidential campaign board. She is an administrator by profession.

After retirement from KAF in 2010, he joined his former colleague, Farrah at Blue Bird Aviation, where he worked for 12 years. He has also worked with companies such as East Africa Safari Air Express.

Gitahi is now planning to also get into the aviation business just like his former colleague.