The Malawi government announced on Wednesday that Vice President Saulos Chilima will be honored with a state funeral following his death in a plane crash along with eight others.
President Lazarus Chakwera had already declared 21 days of national mourning on Tuesday, after the wreckage of the small military plane carrying Chilima and former first lady Shanil Dzimbiri was found in a mountainous region in northern Malawi. During the mourning period, flags will fly at half-staff across the nation.
Chakwera has appointed a ministerial committee to oversee the preparations for Chilima’s state funeral, though no date has been set yet, according to a government statement. Initially, Chakwera mentioned that there were 10 people on the plane, but the government later confirmed that nine people were on board at the time of the crash.
The twin-propeller aircraft went down in a hilly, forested area during bad weather, resulting in the deaths of all passengers and crew on impact. The victims included six passengers and three military crew members. The plane had been carrying Chilima and his staff from the capital, Lilongwe, to Mzuzu for the funeral of a former government minister when it went missing on Monday morning.
President Chakwera explained that air traffic controllers had advised the plane not to land in Mzuzu due to bad weather and poor visibility, instructing it to return to Lilongwe. Contact with the plane was lost, and it disappeared from radar.
Hundreds of soldiers, police officers, and forest rangers conducted a search for more than 24 hours before discovering the wreckage in a forest plantation south of Mzuzu.
On Tuesday night, the remains of the victims were transported back to Lilongwe by a Zambian Air Force helicopter. Officials and mourners, including President Chakwera and Chilima’s wife, Mary, gathered at the airport to receive the bodies. The remains were then taken from the airport in ambulances, with soldiers lining the tarmac in salute.
