The vice president of Malawi, Saulos Chilima, and nine other people died when the small military plane they were traveling in crashed due to bad weather in a mountainous region in the north of the country, the president said Tuesday. Chilima was 51 years old.
In a live speech on state television, the president, Lazarus Chakwera, announced that the remains of the airplane had been located after more than a day of searching in the thick forests and mountains near the northern city of Mzuzu. The fuselage was found near a hill and was “completely destroyed,” and all occupants died from the impact, the president added.
Chakwera He said that he had been informed of the discovery by the head of the Armed Forces and said he felt ““I am deeply saddened and sorry to inform you that this 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 must be feeling right now, as well as how much pain and anguish you will feel in the coming days and weeks as we mourn this terrible loss.“added the president.
The president stated that Chilima was ““a good man, a devoted father and husband, a patriot who served his country with distinction, and a formidable vice president.”
Chakwera He asked to observe a minute of silence and stood with his head bowed on the podium from which he made the announcement.
Former first lady Shanil Dzimbiri, ex-wife of former president Bakili Muluzi, was also traveling on the plane, which carried seven passengers and three military personnel, he added.
The group was traveling to Mzuzu to attend the funeral of a former government minister. Chilima had returned from an official visit to South Korea on Sunday.
Hundreds of soldiers, police and forestry agents searched for the plane that disappeared Monday morning during a 45-minute flight between the capital, Lilongwe, in the south of the country, and the city of Mzuzu, about 370 kilometers (230 miles) away. to the north.
Air traffic controllers told the plane not to attempt to land at Mzuzu airport due to bad weather and poor visibility and asked it to return to Lilongwe, he explained. Chakwera in an appearance Monday night. The controllers then lost contact with the device, which disappeared from the radar, he added.
According to the president, it was a small propeller plane operated by the Malawian armed forces. The registration number he offered indicated that it was a twin-propeller Dornier 228 delivered to the army in 1988, according to the ch-aviation website that tracks information on aircraft.
About 600 people worked on the search operation in a vast forest plantation in the Viphya mountain range near Mzuzu, authorities said, including about 300 police officers, 200 soldiers and rangers in the area.
Chilima was the vice president of the country for the second time in his career since 2020. He had previously held the position between 2014 and 2019, during the presidency of Peter Mutharika.
He ran for president in 2019 and came third, behind Mutharika and Chakwera. The election was later annulled by Malawi’s Constitutional Court due to irregularities.
He then joined Chakwera’s campaign as his running mate in a historic rerun of the 2020 election, when they were elected.
Chilima was accused of corruption for receiving money in exchange for allegedly influencing the awarding of government contracts, but prosecutors dropped the charges against him last month. The vice president had denied the allegations, but the case sparked criticism of the Chakwera government for not taking a strong enough stance against corruption.
Malawi is a country of around 21 million people and was rated the fourth poorest in the world by the World Bank in 2019.
Source: Gestion
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