Brendon Moorhouse was six years old when he first learnt what survival truly meant.
He remembers drifting off to sleep as the Lufthansa jumbo jet prepared for take-off in Nairobi, then waking up inside an inferno. Flames, smoke, screaming passengers, and a man with blood running down his face were the first images his young mind could process.
It was November 20, 1974, when the aircraft crash-landed near the Old Hilton Hotel area, killing 59 people and leaving 98 survivors stumbling out of the wreckage.
The Lufthansa Flight, LH540, crashed shortly after takeoff from Nairobi's then Embakasi Airport (now Jomo Kenyatta International Airport). The Boeing 747 jumbo jet, flying from Frankfurt to Johannesburg via Nairobi, stalled during initial climb, crashed, and caught fire, leading to the loss of 59 lives.
Only fragments of that morning have stayed with him: the heat, the confusion, and a flight steward who grabbed him in desperation and hurled him out of the burning aircraft, saving his life.
"The steward took me and threw me out of the plane," he recalls.
Brendon Moorhouse explains he survived a plane crash on November 20, 1974. Lufthansa Flight 540, a Boeing 747, stalled and crashed shortly after takeoff from Embakasi Airport (now Jomo Kenyatta International Airport) in Nairobi, Kenya.
Photo credit: Chris Omollo|Nation Media group
Moments later, he saw his mother sliding down the torn metal without shoes on.
The first Kenyan they encountered near the wreckage saw her limping barefoot, and without hesitation, offered her his own shoe. Brendon still remembers that moment of humanity with deep gratitude.
"Such kindness," he says quietly.
Brendon survived the crash alongside his mother, father, and his older brother, who was seven at the time. They had been travelling together that morning, unaware that the jumbo jet would go down shortly after take-off.
Nairobi woke to scenes of horror, the giant aircraft split open, firemen spraying foam across the smouldering shell, and thick smoke billowing into the sky. Then Vice-President Mr Moi visited the site and described it as "a bitter thing to see." President Mzee Jomo Kenyatta sent messages of sorrow to the bereaved families, Lufthansa, and the German government.
Hospitals in the city issued an urgent SOS for blood, which drew what medics later described as an overwhelmingly generous response from the public.
"As a child I was shocked," he says. "I didn't know what was happening, waking up to flames, to bodies..."
Brendon Moorhouse displays the Daily Nation Newspaper cuttings of November 20, 1974, a publication of when Lufthansa Flight 540, a Boeing 747, stalled and crashed shortly after takeoff from Embakasi Airport (now Jomo Kenyatta International Airport) in Nairobi, Kenya.
Photo credit: Chris Omollo|Nation Media group
"I think when you go through something like that you shut your life down and become afraid," he says. "Most of the time I try to put it away. I'm lucky to be alive every day, to do the most I can and get the most I can out of life."
Today, he carries the memory not as a burden, but as a reminder of grace and survival.
"I'm lucky to have a wife, two beautiful girls, and I'm about to be a grandfather."
“Brendon, accompanied by his wife and officials from JKIA, returned to the crash site to pay homage to the souls lost in the disaster and to honour the memory of those affected by the accident. The visit served as a poignant reminder of the event that shaped aviation safety and lives at JKIA,” Kenya Airports Authority said this week when
“We at KAA remember and solemnly honour the lives lost in the Lufthansa Flight 540 disaster as we continue our commitment to the highest standards of aviation safety.”
