Malawi’s vice-president, Saulos Chilima, and nine others have died in a plane crash, President Lazarus Chakwera confirmed on live TV.
The military plane, which was carrying Chilima and former first lady Shanil Dzimbiri to a funeral for an ex-minister, crashed on a hillside in the Chikangawa forest in northern Malawi on Monday.
Air traffic controllers had advised the plane not to land in Mzuzu due to bad weather and to return to the capital, Lilongwe. The plane then lost contact and disappeared from the radar. There were seven passengers and three crew members onboard.
“Words cannot describe how heartbreaking this is and I can only imagine how much pain and anguish you may all must be having at this point in time,” said President Chakwera.
He called Chilima “a good man, a devoted father and husband, a patriotic citizen who served his country with distinction, and a formidable vice-president.”
“I consider it one of my greatest honours to be deputised by him in the last years,” Chakwera added.
Chilima had been vice-president since 2014, first serving under President Peter Mutharika until 2019. He previously led the mobile network Airtel Malawi and had worked at Unilever, Coca-Cola, and Carlsberg. He had a wife and two children, according to his profile on the government’s website.
Chilima ran against Mutharika in the 2019 presidential election and came third. The vote was annulled and re-run in 2020, where Chilima joined Chakwera as his running mate.
Last month, prosecutors dropped corruption charges against Chilima, who had been accused of influencing defence and police contracts for payment.
The crashed plane was a Dornier 228-type twin propeller delivered to Malawi’s military in 1988. The US embassy had offered an aircraft for the search, which involved about 600 troops, police, and forest rangers. Israel, Norway, and the UK also offered help.
