MP Nyamilandu demands Malawi scrap ‘wasteful’ retirement age for pilots after crash inquiry hears expert quit flying at 65

A Malawian MP has demanded an urgent shake-up of retirement rules for the country’s most critical professionals, warning Malawi is haemorrhaging vital expertise abroad — after the parliamentary inquiry into the crash that killed former vice-president Saulos Chilima heard a top aviation expert was forced to stop flying simply because he turned 65.

Walter Nyamilandu, who chairs the Parliamentary Ad Hoc Committee investigating the June 10, 2024 military plane crash, made the explosive call after retired pilot and aviation expert Captain Jackson Sagawa revealed to the committee that he no longer flies, having been forced into retirement at the age of 65.

Sagawa had been called before MPs to deliver crucial technical evidence on the aircraft’s final flight, including the crew’s decisions, flight procedures and the possible causes of the disaster that claimed the lives of Chilima and eight others.

But it was his revelation about being sidelined from the skies at 65 that sparked Nyamilandu’s fury, with the committee chairman warning that Malawi is losing irreplaceable experience — with many of its brightest minds forced to seek work overseas instead.

“Malawi has a lot of such people, even in the diaspora, and there is a brain drain. They go and work outside the country because this is rare expertise,” Nyamilandu said in an interview after the hearing.

The MP insisted the country urgently needs to rethink how it treats its most experienced professionals in critical, specialist fields, where their knowledge could prove invaluable in training the next generation.

“I am not saying this should apply to everybody. Let’s choose critical services like pilots,” he said, making clear his proposal was targeted rather than a blanket call to scrap retirement ages altogether.

Nyamilandu pointed to a precedent already set for another critical profession, drawing comparisons with the retention of experienced judges after Parliament voted in 2022 to raise the judiciary’s retirement age from 65 to 70 — a move he suggested pilots and other specialists should now be afforded too.