Malawian Vice President Saulos Chilima was among 10 people killed when a small military plane crashed in a mountainous area in northern Malawi, the country's president said on Tuesday. Chilima was 51.
President Lazarus Chakwera announced in a live address on national television that the wreckage had been found in dense forest and hilly terrain near the northern city of Mzuzu after more than a day of searching. Chakwera said there were no survivors from the crash.
The presidency said former first lady Shaniel Zimbiri, ex-wife of former president Bakili Muluzi, was also on board the plane, which had seven passengers and three military crew members.
The delegation was in Mzuzu to attend the funeral of a former government minister. Chilima had just concluded an official visit to South Korea on Sunday.
Hundreds of soldiers, police and rangers had been searching for the plane after it disappeared early Monday while flying from the southern African country's capital, Lilongwe, to Mzuzu, about 370 kilometres (230 miles) to the north.
Speaking late on Monday night, Chakwera said air traffic controllers told the plane not to attempt to land at Mzuzu airport because of bad weather and low visibility and asked it to return to Lilongwe. He said air traffic controllers then lost contact with the plane and it disappeared from radar.
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The president described the plane as a small propeller aircraft operated by the Malawi Armed Forces. The tail number he provided indicated it was a Dornier 228 twin-propeller aircraft delivered to the Malawi military in 1988, according to the ch-aviation website, which tracks aircraft information.
Malawian Vice President Saulos Chilima (left) greets government officials as he returns from South Korea in Lilongwe, Sunday, June 9, 2024.
AP Photo
Authorities said about 600 personnel were involved in the search of a large area of forest in the Wipiya Mountains near Mzuzu, including about 300 police officers, 200 soldiers and local rangers.
Chilima is serving his second term as vice president. He also served as vice president under former President Peter Mutharika from 2014 to 2019. He was a candidate in Malawi's 2019 presidential election, coming in third behind incumbent President Mutharika and Chakwera. The Malawi Constitutional Court later annulled the vote due to irregularities.
Chilima then served as Chakwera's running mate in the historic 2020 re-election, which saw Chakwera win the presidency. This was the first time in Africa that an election result was overturned by the courts, resulting in the defeat of an incumbent president.
Chilima had previously faced corruption charges for allegedly accepting money to influence the awarding of government procurement contracts for Malawi's armed forces and police, but prosecutors dropped the charges last month. He has denied the charges, but the case has sparked criticism that the Chakwera government is not doing enough to combat corruption.
The search for the plane lasted more than 24 hours and triggered an international response. Chakwera said the United States, Britain, Norway and Israel had assisted in the search and provided “technical expertise.”
The U.S. Embassy in Malawi said it also offered assistance and offered to provide Malawi with a small U.S. Department of Defense C-12 aircraft.
However, officials from Chilima’s United Transformation Movement party, a different party from the president, criticised the government’s slow response and said there was no transponder on the plane, a worrying situation for a plane carrying a high-level delegation.
Malawi, a country of approximately 21 million people, was ranked as the fourth poorest country in the world by the World Bank in 2019.
Imre reports from Cape Town, South Africa.
© 2024 The Canadian Press
