Malawi\u2019s Vice-President, Saulos Chilima, was among 10 people killed when a small military plane crashed in a mountainous region in the north of the country, the president said in a live televised address on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Air traffic controllers lost contact with the plane on Monday after telling the pilot to turn back to the capital, Lilongwe, due to bad weather.<\/p>\n
“I’m deeply saddened, I’m sorry to inform you all that it has turned out to be a terrible tragedy. The search and rescue team has found the aircraft near a hill. They have found it completely destroyed with no survivors,” President Lazarus Chakwera said.<\/p>\n
The president went on to praise the late vice-president, saying it had been an honour to work with him and that his passing was a “terrible loss” to his family and the country.<\/p>\n
“Dr Saulos Chilima was a good man, a devoted father and husband, a patriotic citizen who served his country with distinction, and a formidable vice-president,” he said.<\/p>\n
He said the seven passengers and three crew members on board the plane were killed on impact and that the military was bringing their remains back to the capital.<\/p>\n
The group, which included former first lady Shanil Dzimbiri, had been traveling to the northern city of Mzuzu to attend the funeral of a former government minister.<\/p>\n
Chilima, 51, was serving his second term as vice-president and was widely as a potential candidate in next year’s presidential election.<\/p>\n
In 2022, he was arrested over graft allegation, but the charges against him were dropped last month. He denied any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n
Chakwera said funeral arrangements would be announced in due course.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Malawi\u2019s Vice-President, Saulos Chilima, was among 10 people killed when a small military plane crashed in a mountainous region in the north of the country, the president said in a live televised address on Tuesday. Air traffic controllers lost contact with the plane on Monday after telling the pilot to turn back to the capital, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12166,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":4,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"AP","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"0","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"0","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"0","show_popup_post":"0","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,33,30],"tags":[274,2629,2630],"class_list":["post-12165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-politics","category-southern-africa","tag-malawi","tag-saulos-chilima","tag-shanil-dzimbiri"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}