The Vice President of Malawi and nine other people have died in a plane crash, the country’s President Lazarus Chakwera announced on Tuesday. The wreckage of the military plane with Vice President Saulos Chilima on board was found after a search in a mountainous region in the north of the country. There are no survivors of the crash, the Malawian President said in a speech on state television.
Hundreds of soldiers and police officers had been searching for the plane after it disappeared on Monday morning during the 45-minute flight from Lilongwe, the capital of the southern African country, to the city of Mzuzu, 370 kilometers to the north.
Air traffic controllers advised the plane not to land at Mzuzu airport due to bad weather and poor visibility and asked it to turn back to Lilongwe, Chakwera said. Air traffic control then lost contact with the plane and it disappeared from radar, it said.
There were seven passengers and three military personnel on board. The president described the aircraft as a small propeller plane operated by the Malawi armed forces.