Omar Farah Pilot, one of Kenyan’s first Somali airmen, dies at 72
Nairobi – Veteran pilot, one of the first Somalis to serve the capacity in the country, Omar Farah Hussein better known as Omar Pilot has died.
His janaza was held at Masjid Nur, South C during Dhuhr prayer and buried at the Langata Muslim Cemetery on Langata Road on Thursday.
Omar Pilot was born on December 1951 in Raya, a settlement near Garissa township.
The son of Farah Soldat, an indefatigable and war-hardened soldier later with his family from Raya to Balambala in Garissa District.
The Pilot and his other siblings were raised by their Aunt after the death of their mother.
They moved to Tarime in north-western Tanzania during his early life attending early childhood education.
Omar and two other students were the first Muslims to be accepted to attend Alliance Secondary School in Musoma, Tanzania.
Omar is the son of a veteran in the military who was trained in Italy and later years fought in WWII while holding the rank of Corporal in the Italian Colonial Army.
He was stationed in the Gedo Region of Somalia and Elwak in northern Kenya during the British-Italian War over Somali territories.
During the British-Italian War over Somaliland, Italy conquered parts of Jubbaland in southern Somalia, as well as Buna and Moyale in northern Kenya.
Omar Pilot was among eleven recruits from different ethnic groups who were selected from at Eastleigh Airbase by Kenya Air Force in 1974.
Indecorously, of the eleven recruits who were selected for the Air Force student pilot training, Omar and three others who were the only Muslims, were fired unceremoniously without just cause.
Majority of the jobseekers travelled from other regions to partake in that scandalous and discourteous misconduct instigated by recruiters driven by ethnic favouritisms and nepotisms.
With the restriction of Somalis for employment rife in the country, Omar encountered another hurdle: getting a national passport that would ease his travel to Oxford Air Training School, England to embark on his anticipated piloting course.
Before getting attracted to the career of piloting airplanes, Omar was an Auditor at Garissa District headquarters office.
He flew into hostile tribal territories mostly in northern Kenya where pilots from other ethnic groups avoided for fear of being shot down. At times Omar would land on dangerous terrains that were reserved as airstrips.
Those days, pilots and the rest of the police force wore short pants as uniform and it was Omar who came up with the idea of introducing long trousers.
Omar claimed it was against his Islamic faith to expose his body parts, an idea that got the attention of his superiors.
After serving six years while holding the rank of Senior Inspector, Omar decided to call it quits.
To his amazement, he was denied to leave the police force ceremoniously while his logbook was withheld indefinitely.
However, after three harrowing months, a decision was reached to let him go and his logbook released without strings attached.
After retiring from the Kenya Police Air Wing, Omar flew for different groups operating lighter aircrafts such as Frontier Airlines, Pioneer Airlines, Sunbird Aviation, Sky Masters Airlines, United Airlines, Western Airways, and the Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC) as a company Pilot.
Since KPLC owned a Cessna 303 CR that was not perfect for inspecting the grid lines from hydro electric power stations to Mombasa for faults, Omar switched to flying helicopters.
After leaving KPLC, the veteran pilot purchased his own Cessna 5Y-FUF.
The last three alphabets, FUF, which denote Foxtrot Uniform Foxtrot was named after his daughter Fatuma Omar Farah.
Unfortunately, the light aircraft crashed in later years while being piloted by a pioneer friend.