BLANTYRE, Malawi, 11th June, 2024 (WAM) -- Malawi’s president said Vice President Saulos Chilima was killed in a plane crash, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.
The Malawi Defense Force aircraft carrying Chilima and nine other passengers left Lilongwe, the capital, shortly after 09.00 local time on Monday bound for Mzuzu, a city in the country’s north where the terrain is hilly and densely forested. The journey was scheduled to last less than an hour, but contact was lost.
There were no survivors in the crash, President Lazarus Chakwera said in a televised address Tuesday.
“The army commander informed me the wreckage was found on one of the hills of Chikangawa Forest,” he said. “Everyone in the plane perished. All passengers on board died on the impact of the crash.”
Chilima, 51, was a charismatic politician who was popular among Malawi’s youth. An economist and businessman who had a successful career in telecommunications, Chilima entered politics in 2014. He became the country’s youngest vice president later that year.