General Francis Omondi Ogolla, the Chief of the Kenya Defence Forces, was on board the helicopter that crashed shortly after takeoff on Thursday.

Kenya commenced three days of mourning on Friday following the tragic loss of its defence chief and nine other senior military officers in a helicopter crash on Thursday evening.

General Francis Omondi Ogolla, the Chief of the Kenya Defence Forces (CDF), was among those aboard the helicopter, which crashed shortly after takeoff in a remote area of northwestern Kenya.

President William Ruto expressed his condolences, stating, "A distinguished four-star general has fallen in the course of duty and service of the country," as he announced the deaths that evening.

He declared that the nation would honor the fallen officers with three days of mourning, during which the national flag would be flown at half-mast across the country and at Kenyan missions abroad.

The leading Daily Nation newspaper featured the front-page headline "Final Salute."

The bodies of the victims, draped in Kenyan flags, were solemnly returned to a military base in Nairobi aboard an air force plane late Thursday.

General Ogolla, born in 1962, had been appointed to his position by Ruto just a year prior and was on the verge of commemorating 40 years of dedicated military service.

In a poignant post on LinkedIn, his daughter, Lorna Ogolla, reflected, "My father died doing what he did best for the better part of the last 40 years—trying to keep Kenya safe."

Condolences poured in from across the region and from foreign diplomatic missions in Kenya.

Ogolla had been visiting troops deployed in Operation Maliza Uhalifu (Operation End Crime in Swahili) in the North Rift region, where insecurity due to armed bandits and cattle rustlers is prevalent.

Ruto stated that the Air Force had sent an investigation team to determine the cause of the crash.

According to Kenyan media reports, this incident marked the fifth armed forces helicopter crash in the past 12 months.

In June 2021, at least 10 soldiers lost their lives when their helicopter crashed during a training exercise south of Nairobi.