Police IG Luhanga echoes Chilima’s proverb as he admits searchers ‘got lost’

Malawi’s police chief has made a startling admission to MPs investigating the Chikangawa plane crash, telling them officers searching for the aircraft carrying former vice-president Saulos Chilima “really did get lost”, as he described a search crippled by dense forest, freezing conditions and a flood of online misinformation.

Inspector General of Police Richard Luhanga made the remarks while giving evidence to the Parliamentary Ad-Hoc Committee investigating the 10 June 2024 crash, which killed Chilima and eight others.

His words carried an eerie echo. In Chichewa, Luhanga used a proverb the late Chilima was known to favour, roughly translated as “a journey has no value if you are lost”, before conceding: “Ife tidasocheradi”, meaning “we really did get lost”.

He stressed that the search in Chikangawa Forest was hit by many difficulties, among them false messages spreading on social media.

Luhanga backed former Army Commander General Valentino Phiri’s description of the search area as “Ndi kokhwithima“, meaning very dense.

“It’s September now, but this forest is still dense,” he told the committee.

He told MPs the search was hampered by inadequate search equipment and poor preparedness for the extreme cold.

He also blamed misinformation on social media and live commentary by some traditional media outlets for complicating the operation, accusing some outlets of interviewing people who, he said, made incoherent statements and suggested the officers involved did not know what they were doing.

Such interference, he warned, risked the police losing control of the operation to members of the public.

But it was his explanation of the recovery operation that may raise the most eyebrows.

Luhanga insisted officers had deliberately used pangas and hammers, rather than machinery, at the crash site as a safety precaution.

Machinery, he told the committee, risked producing sparks that could have ignited a fire at the wreckage.

The use of manual tools, he said, was therefore not evidence that officers lacked appropriate equipment, but a deliberate decision to minimise the risk of fire while accessing the wreckage.

The testimony adds to an inquiry that has already heard conflicting accounts about the search effort, with MPs continuing to press witnesses on how information was handled and what resources were available in those critical hours.