Malawi’s Vice President Saulos Klaus Chilima and nine others on board a military aircraft that went missing on Monday were killed in a plane crash, President Lazarus Chakwera said on Tuesday.
The aircraft carrying Chilima, 51, left the capital Lilongwe at 09:17 a.m. (0717 GMT) on Monday but was unable to land at Mzuzu airport as scheduled at 10:02 a.m. due to poor visibility.
It was ordered to return to the capital but went off the radar and aviation authorities could not make contact with it.
“I’m deeply saddened, I’m sorry to inform you all that it has turn out to be a terrible tragedy. The search and rescue team has found the aircraft near a hill… they have found it completely destroyed with no survivors,” Chakwera, said.
Chakwera said in an address to the nation that the crash site was in a mountainous part of the Chikangawa Forest.
Chilima, seen as a potential candidate in next year’s presidential election, was arrested in 2022 over graft allegations.
However, a Malawi court dropped the charges against him last month after the director of public prosecutions filed a notice for the case to be discontinued. Chilima has denied wrongdoing.
Meanwhile Malawian searchers have found the wreckage of a plane that was carrying Vice President Saulos Chilima, a military source said Tuesday, a day after the aircraft went missing in bad weather.
Photographs shared with AFP by a member of the military rescue team showed army personnel standing on a foggy slope near debris bearing the registration number of the Malawi Army Air Wing Dornier 228-202K aircraft.
President Lazarus Chakwera was due to address the nation. It was not immediately clear if there were any survivors.
Rescuers had been combing a fog-cloaked forest south of Mzuzu on Tuesday, after authorities located the last tower it transmitted to before the plane disappeared.
Earlier, army commander General Paul Valentino Phiri said other countries, including Malawi’s neighbours, had been aiding the search effort, with support including helicopters and drones.
The group departed just after 9:00 am (0700 GMT) from Lilongwe on Monday to attend the funeral of a former cabinet minister some 370 kilometres (230 miles) away in Mzuzu.
Malawi’s former first lady Shanil Dzimbiri was also on board.
First elected vice president in 2014, the charismatic yet stern-talking Chilima is a widely loved figure in Malawi, particularly among young people.
But in 2022, during his second stint in the job, Chilima was stripped of his powers after being arrested and charged with graft over a bribery scandal involving a British-Malawian businessman.
Source: The Nation/AFP
