Flight With Malawi Vice President and Nine Others Goes Missing

The vice president of the southeast African nation of Malawi and nine others were reportedly on board a missing aircraft.

According to Lucky Sikwese, an assistant in Chilima’s office, nine individuals, including Vice President Saulos Chilima, went missing after leaving Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, after 9 a.m. to attend the funeral of former Attorney General Ralph Kasambara.  Officials were unable to reach the jet after reports indicated it vanished from radar systems.

After missing its landing at Mzuzu International Airport owing to inclement weather, Sikwese claimed that aviation authorities had verified that the jet carrying the Malawi Defense Force had not touched down at any of the other airports.

According to the source, in reaction to the jet going missing, President Lazarus Chakwera of Malawi ordered a search and rescue effort, including local, state, and federal organizations.

As soon as President Lazarus Chakwera heard about the incident, he promptly ordered a search and rescue mission. Unfortunately, no one was on board when the plane’s remains were located in a hilly area. According to President Chakwera, all nine passengers, including Vice President Chilima (51), died in the plane crash.  Among those that perished was Mary, Chilima’s wife. 

Reports of the jet’s disappearance emerged one month after Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s plane crashed in harsh weather in the country’s mountainous interior. It was also said that officials from Iran, including the foreign minister Amirabdollahian, were on board.

The authorities finally chose to honor Raisi as a martyr and venerate him as a religious figure after some deliberation. They paraded him across many towns before burying him in a tomb at the sacred Imam Reza Shrine in Mashhad, where he was born.

His extravagant funeral infuriated Iranians who were already struggling under the regime’s disastrous economic policies, and the regime’s choice of burial place only made matters worse.