Malawi Vice President, 9 others killed in plane crash

Malawi’s Vice President Saulos Klaus Chilima, and nine others on board the airplane that went missing on June 10 had been killed, the country’s President Lazarus Chakwera said during an address to the nation on Tuesday.

The aircraft they they were travelling in crashed in the Chikangawa mountain range, the Malawian government said on Tuesday.

The Malawian President confirmed that there had been no survivors when the plane carrying Chilima and others crashed into a forest.

“The plane has been found and I am deeply saddened and sorry to inform you all, it has turned out to be a terrible tragedy,” President Chakwera said, in a televised address.

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“The search and rescue team has found the aircraft near a hill. They have found it completely destroyed with no survivors,” the President further said.

Also Read: Plane carrying Malawi Vice-President, 9 others goes missing

President Chakwera declared Tuesday a national day of mourning.

Where Malawi Vice President was travelling to

Chilima along with the other passengers onboard the ill-fated aircraft were travelling to attend the funeral of the country’s former attorney general when it dropped off radar.

Local media reports mentioned the air traffic officials saying that the plane which took off from the southern African nation’s capital, Lilongwe, could not land at Mzuzu airport, around 370 kilometres north of the capital, due to bad weather and poor visibility.

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The pilot was advised to return to Lilongwe after which the flight disappeared, the air traffic officials informed.

The wreckage of the military plane carrying Chilima and others was located in a mountainous area in the north of the African nation after a search that continued for more than a day.

Hundreds of soldiers, police officers and forest rangers carried out extensive search for a missing military plane carrying the 51-year-old Malawi’s vice president, former first lady Shanil Dzimbiri (the ex-wife of former President Bakili Muluzi) and eight others.

In which aircraft the Malawi Vice President was travelling?

As per the Malawai President, the aircraft in which Chilima and others were travelling was a small, propeller driven operated by the Malawian armed forces.

The tail number, the president provided, shows it is a Dornier 228-type twin propeller plane which according to the ch-aviation website, that tracks aircraft information, was delivered to the Malawian army in 1988.

“Despite the track record of the aircraft and the experience of the crew, something terrible went wrong with that aircraft on its flight back to Lilongwe, sending it crashing down and leaving us all devastated,” the Malawi President said on Tuesday.

Chilima was a possible contender for 2025 Malawi Presidential polls

According to a report by CBS News, Chilima, in Malawi, was seen as a possible contender for next year’s presidential election.

Chilima was first sworn in as Vice President of the Republic of Malawi on May 30, 2014 and on June 28, 2020 he was sworn in for his second term as Vice President of the republic of Malawi.

He was arrested in in 2022 on graft allegations, amid reports that he had received kickbacks from a businessman for government contracts. However, he consistently denied the charges, right up until last month, when they were dropped by the national prosecutor, who filed a notice for the discontinuation of the case.

With inputs from agencies