Dodma caught in explosive U-turn over Chilima crash search testimony

Malawi’s disaster management chiefs have been plunged into fresh controversy after giving Parliament wildly conflicting accounts of what really happened to their own aircraft during the desperate search for the plane carrying former vice-president Saulos Chilima and eight others.

The Department of Disaster Management Affairs (Dodma) now faces mounting pressure to explain itself after top officials appeared before the parliamentary ad hoc committee investigating the tragic June 10, 2024 crash — only to deliver testimony that directly clashed with the department’s own earlier written report.

Dodma commissioner Wilson Moleni, flanked by officials Samuel Gama and Fidelis Mandalasi, told stunned MPs that a Dodma aircraft being used for mapping was standing by, ready to join the frantic search and rescue mission, but never actually took to the skies because the wreckage had already been found.

But extraordinarily, that account flatly contradicts an earlier report submitted by Dodma to the very same committee, which stated the aircraft HAD flown out on the morning of June 11, 2024, to carry out mapping — before being forced to turn back because of bad weather.

The glaring inconsistency sparked immediate alarm from Zomba Thondwe legislator Dumisani Lindani, who grilled officials over both the shifting account and the suspicious timing of the department’s response.

Lindani revealed that approval for the aircraft to join the search had been granted at around 9pm on June 10 — yet the plane wasn’t scheduled to actually join the operation until roughly 9am the following morning, a discrepancy he said demanded urgent explanation.

Committee chairperson Walter Nyamilandu also voiced serious concern over the clashing accounts, piling further pressure on Dodma officials to lay bare exactly what happened to the aircraft during those critical hours when every minute counted.

The timing could scarcely be more sensitive — the wreckage was ultimately discovered in the dense Chikangawa Forest on June 11, after an agonising search operation battling brutal terrain and near-zero visibility.

Under intense questioning, Moleni was forced to concede the glaring discrepancies, promising that Dodma would now work alongside the Department of Civil Aviation to untangle the conflicting information and produce a definitive report on the aircraft’s movements and the department’s true role in the search.

The bombshell testimony adds yet another troubling layer to an inquiry already grappling with serious questions over Malawi’s handling of the crash response — with recent hearings repeatedly exposing unsettling gaps and inconsistencies buried within official institutional records.