President Lazarus Chakwera of Malawi in the last hour has just confirmed that Malawi’s Vice President Dr Saulos Klaus Chilima died in a plane crash that went missing yesterday in Chikangawa Forest. The plane was found today, and Malawi is now in mourning.
Chakwera was visibly shaken when delivering the news, and fought back tears towards the end of the address, in what was a very emotional address. Preparations are now being made for a state funeral.
Vice President Chilima left Lilongwe International Airport yesterday on a Dornier 228 belonging to the Malawi Defence Forces (MDF), with 8 others to travel to Mzuzu city, which is about 200 miles away from Lilongwe, en-route to attend the funeral of former Minister of Justice and former Attorney General Ralph Kasambara, who was a close friend of Chilima. Kasambara, who died on Friday last week in Lilongwe, was laid to rest at his home village, Chijere, in Nkhata Bay district yesterday (10th June), and the vice president was supposed to be at the burial ceremony, but didn’t make it.
However, when the plane the Vice President was on was descending into Mzuzu, they were informed by air traffic control that visibility was particularly bad, and that they shouldn’t attempt a landing in such poor weather conditions. A decision was then made to divert the plane to Lilongwe, and it was during this part of their journey that the plane run into problems and disappeared off radar only to crash into a hill within Chikangawa forest, in Mzimba District in northern Malawi.
The facts of the crash are not yet fully known, but more information will be provided once an investigation has been conducted and the full facts have been established. What is known is that Chikangawa forest, which is considerably large (at more that 1147 square kilometers), has large parts that are inhabited, and is often covered in very dense fog. It is not known why the pilots decided to use that route, or whether it was a regular route for flights, however villagers in nearby villages reported yesterday of seeing a plane “flying very low”.
As can be imagined, Malawi is now in mourning, and our thoughts and prayers are with the family of the Vice president, and the families of the others who have died in this most tragic accident.
malawiace.com 