The Malawi government announced Wednesday that Vice President Saulos Chilima will be honored with a state funeral following his death in a plane crash that also killed eight others.
President Lazarus Chakwera declared 21 days of national mourning on Tuesday after the wreckage of the small military plane carrying Chilima and a former first lady was discovered in a mountainous area in the north. During the mourning period, flags will fly at half-staff across the nation.
Chakwera appointed a ministerial committee to oversee preparations for Chilima’s state funeral, but no date has been set yet.
Initially, Chakwera stated that there were 10 people on the plane, but the government later confirmed that a total of nine were on board at the time of the crash.
All passengers died on impact when the twin-propeller aircraft crashed in a hilly, forested area during bad weather. Among the victims was former first lady Shanil Dzimbiri, the ex-wife of former Malawian President Bakili Muluzi. The crash killed six passengers and three military crew members.
The plane was carrying Chilima and his staff on a brief flight from Lilongwe to Mzuzu to attend a former government minister’s funeral when it went missing Monday morning.
Mary Chilima, wife of the late Vice President, was consoled by Malawi First Lady Monica Chakwera at Kamuzu International Airport in Lilongwe on Tuesday. The president revealed that air traffic controllers had advised the plane not to land in Mzuzu due to poor weather and visibility, instructing it to return to Lilongwe. Contact was lost after the plane disappeared from radar.
The wreckage was discovered after more than 24 hours of searching by hundreds of soldiers, police officers, and forest rangers in a forest plantation south of Mzuzu.
The victims’ remains were flown back to Lilongwe by a Zambian Air Force helicopter on Tuesday night. Officials and mourners, including President Chakwera and Mary Chilima, gathered at the airport as the bodies were transported in ambulances while soldiers lined the tarmac in salute.
