Malawi’s Vice-President Chilima, nine officials killed in plane crash
Malawian Vice-President Saulos Klaus Chilima and nine other officials have been confirmed killed in an aircraft.
AP reports that President Lazarus Chakwera, who confirmed the demise in a live address on state television on Tuesday, revealed that the aircraft had seven passengers and three military crew members on board.
There were no survivors.
According to the president, the wreckage of the military aircraft carrying his vice-president, operated by the country’s armed forces, after a thorough search lasting over a day, was later located in a mountainous area in northern Malawi.
Mr Chakwera stated that air traffic controllers told the plane not to attempt a landing at Mzuzu’s airport due to bad weather and poor visibility and asked it to turn back to Lilongwe. Subsequently, air traffic control lost contact with the aircraft.
“I am deeply saddened and sorry to inform you all that it has turned out to be a terrible tragedy. Words cannot describe how heartbreaking this is and I can only imagine how much pain and anguish you all will be feeling in the coming days and weeks as mourn this terrible loss,” Mr Chakwera said.
The Malawian president described his late 51-year-old deputy as “a good man,” “devoted father,” and “formidable VP,” adding that he considered it “one of the great honours of my life to have had him as a deputy and as a counsellor.”
The office of the Malawi president and cabinet announced that the aircraft had gone missing in a statement on Monday.
The statement disclosed that the aircraft, which took off from Lilongwe at 9:17 a.m. on Monday morning, failed to make its scheduled landing at Mzuzu International Airport at 10:0 a.m. It added that all efforts by aviation authorities to contact the aircraft since it went off the radar failed.
The aircraft was said to have gone missing while making the 45-minute flight from Lilongwe to Mzuzu, around 370km (230 miles) to the north, and a search party for the crashed aircraft was undertaken by a combination of hundreds of soldiers, police officers and forest rangers.
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