BOMBSHELL: No written passenger list existed for Chilima’s fatal final flight, security chief admits to MPs
A stunning documentation gap has emerged in the investigation into the June 2024 Chikangawa plane crash, after a former Kamuzu International Airport (KIA) security chief admitted to MPs that no written passenger manifest ever existed confirming who actually boarded the aircraft carrying Vice-President Saulos Chilima on his final, fatal flight.
Assistant Commissioner of Police Alex Simenti, who served as KIA Officer-in-Charge of security operations at the time, told the Parliamentary Ad-hoc Committee investigating the crash that airport police received only a VERBAL passenger list from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs before the aircraft departed for Mzuzu on June 10, 2024.
When MPs pressed him on whether that verbal list was ever backed up by an official written manifest, Simenti’s answer left the committee stunned: no such document was ever produced.
Astonishingly, he further revealed he still had not seen a written manifest even by the time he appeared before the inquiry, more than two years after the tragedy.
The bombshell revelation could prove absolutely critical as MPs attempt to reconstruct, minute by minute, exactly what happened before the Malawi Defence Force Dornier 228 took off from KIA at approximately 9:17am — and crucially, establish precisely who was on board when it crashed.
Chilima and eight others died when the aircraft went down in the Chikangawa forest during what should have been a routine flight from Lilongwe to Mzuzu.
The committee also examined CCTV footage capturing the movements of Chilima and those accompanying him at KIA in the moments before departure, footage that has now raised fresh and troubling questions over the identities and exact number of people who boarded the aircraft, and whether everyone who boarded the flight went through the required security procedures.
Simenti insisted security arrangements were properly in place at the time. But the committee is now expected to weigh his testimony directly against the CCTV footage and evidence from other witnesses, in a bid to determine whether the airport’s own procedures were genuinely followed on the day.
The absence of a written manifest leaves a glaring hole in the documentary trail surrounding a flight involving the country’s own Vice-President — a gap that raises uncomfortable questions about basic passenger accountability at one of Malawi’s most important airports.
Two questions now sit at the very heart of the inquiry: who exactly boarded Chilima’s final flight — and where, if anywhere, is the official written record proving it?
As the committee continues cross-referencing witness accounts against CCTV evidence, the missing manifest could yet prove to be a crucial piece of the puzzle in determining precisely what happened between the Vice-President’s arrival at KIA and the aircraft’s final, fatal departure.
The inquiry has not established that the missing document caused or contributed to the crash itself. But its absence raises deeply serious questions about passenger accountability, airport security procedures, and the completeness of official records surrounding one of Malawi’s most consequential aviation tragedies.
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There is a need to distinguish between Military air operations and Civil airline operations. The enquiry should start with this, in terms of aircraft operational fitness for flight – airworthiness, aircrew licencing and maintenance details. Additionally, and particular attention should focus on aircraft mandatory equipment, load and weight distribution, and operational support scrutiny, including aircrew obligatory duties.
Some distinctions include:
1. Loadsheet and Passenger Manifest – All civil commercial aircraft operations require at least three copies of the departing aircraft to have (i) a loadsheet prepared either by ground handling staff or First Officer with their signatures plus the accepting and checking aircraft Captain’s signature. Aircrew retains a copy for their flight documents that are filed by operations department; one copy carried as an inflight document by cabin crew for hand-over on arrival at destination airport.
Similarly, a passenger manifest (copy) is carried by the cabin crew as flight documents for hand-over at final destination. Military transport operations can be exempt from carrying the Loadsheet and Passenger manifest because of the nature of their flight operations.
2. A Flight Plan is filed with departure ATC specifying flight times, total fuel, alternate airports including flight routing, radio navigation equipment and en route aids, safety and survival radio equipment on board the aircraft, flight altitudes and weather. Crews obtain a meteorology brief pack for their flight prepared especially for their flight plan.
3. Flight Data Recorders – exempt for aircraft with a maximum all up weight below 7500 kgs. Military operations may not be obligated to have this equipment on, even for heavier aircraft.
4. Weather radar onboard equipment. Most aircraft will have this, but be advised, most of these support radio equipment, require additional heavy equipment (Invertors) to convert aircraft power into operational DC/AC currents. This may be detrimental to the overall engine power rating of the aircraft.
5. Flight Crew Licensing – civil airline pilots maintain all licensing paperwork with the Department of Civil Aviation. I am not knowledgeable about military aircrew requirements/obligations.
Lastly, airport fuelling agents do retain copies of refuel documents. Together with load sheet copies, it is easy to work out the aircraft take off weight and especially the total payload weight.
If what is captured here is correct, then we are operating worse than villagers. Total mess. Looks like some people were indeed not searched, CCTV cameras were not used where it mattered most (why concentrate only from the VVIP lounge up to the plane and not inside where some passengers accompanying the VP were? Why are we behaving as if we are all amateurs? Unbelievable! I have hitherto convinced myself that the crash was an accident, but the way some of the obvious security issues were overlooked, makes me think twice. No weather information was apparently not sought, airport security made school boy blunders, and is it procedural to get a verbal passenger manifest?
What did the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have to do with the VP’s trip up north? The Ministry is quoted as the one that submitted the verbal passenger manifest.