David Rudisha, a two-time Olympian in the 800 metres, was not hurt when the aircraft he was in made an emergency landing.
A plane carrying six people crashed on Saturday in Kajiado County in southeast Kenya, landing upside down in a field. Rudisha was one of the victims.
Despite being unharmed during the “scary episode,” Rudisha, 33, praised the pilot for his actions.
“All was well close to seven or eight minutes into the flight when the engine of the plane suddenly went quiet,” he told the Daily Nation.
“He [the pilot] saw some clear space where he tried to land the plane, but one of its wings hit a tree as the plane started to spin before landing on the rocky field. The pilot did an incredible job to keep the plane afloat and stable for long.”
Rudisha, who won gold in London in 2012 and Rio in 2016, was unharmed, but one of the other passengers, Stephen Ole Marai, was hospitalised for rib injuries as they were leaving the annual Maasai Olympics at the Kimana Wildlife Sanctuary in Kajiado County.
It’s not the first close call Rudisha has had to deal with; in 2019, a tyre burst on his car and it collided head-on with a bus.