Malawi’s tragedy on 10 June—the unfortunate crash that killed the Republican Vice President Dr. Saulos Klaus Chilima and eight others—did not unfold only in the Chikangawa forest. It unfolded on our screens, in our newsrooms, and across every broadcast frequency in the country. Social media screamed. But mainstream media stumbled too. It was chaotic. Unfortunately, […]
Senior Malawian police officers have delivered starkly conflicting accounts over the condition and handling of former vice-president Saulos Chilima’s mobile phones following the devastating June 10, 2024 military plane crash in Nthungwa Forest, Viphya Plantation. Former Northern Region Deputy Commissioner of Police Glinton Mitayi told the Parliamentary Ad-hoc Committee investigating the crash that he personally […]
A baffling one-hour discrepancy has emerged over the moment the wreckage of the aircraft carrying former Vice-President Saulos Chilima and eight others was discovered — raising fresh questions over the desperate search operation and the preservation of vital evidence. Parliament’s Ad-hoc Committee investigating the Chikangawa plane crash has expressed concern after being presented with two […]
Dramatic new details of the desperate scramble to locate the aircraft carrying former vice-president Saulos Chilima have emerged before Parliament, as former Airtel Malawi managing director Charles Kamoto revealed exactly how officials raced against time to trace phones belonging to those onboard. Kamoto told the Parliamentary Ad-hoc Committee investigating the Chikangawa crash that he was […]
The Parliamentary Ad-Hoc Committee investigating the Chikangawa plane crash says it’s on track to wrap up the third phase of its probe by the end of October, after hammering out a fresh six-week schedule to grill key witnesses involved in the search and rescue operation. Committee members were locked in lengthy talks over the revised […]
A community witness caught up in the investigation into the plane crash that killed Malawi’s former vice-president Saulos Chilima has made the astonishing revelation that he was wrongly accused of being involved in the tragedy — with some people even claiming he himself had died in the crash. Colred Nkosi told the Parliamentary Ad-hoc Committee […]
A community member from northern Malawi has told a parliamentary committee investigating the plane crash that killed former vice-president Saulos Chilima that she was threatened and had her two sons taken by police after reporting the disaster to authorities. Flora Mkandawire, who lived near the Nthungwa forest, gave evidence to the committee probing the June […]
Malawi Congress Party (MCP) legislator Sylvestre Ayuba James has alleged that dramatic testimony given by Ephraim Duma before Parliament’s Ad Hoc Committee investigating the death of former Vice-President Saulos Chilima was not a random intervention, but a politically calculated attempt by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to revive a narrative that MCP was responsible for […]
Extraordinary details have emerged from the cross-examination of witness Ephraim Duma, who claimed before Parliament’s Ad Hoc Committee investigating former Vice-President Saulos Chilima’s death that he saw Chilima calling out for help from the doomed aircraft moments before it crashed. Under sharp questioning from committee member Dedza Mayani MP, Savel Kafwafwa, Duma was pressed to […]
A bombshell witness account has thrown the investigation into the death of former Vice-President Saulos Chilima into fresh turmoil, after a community member told Parliament he saw Chilima apparently begging for help moments before the doomed aircraft crashed – and later witnessed gunfire at the wreckage. Ephraim Duma delivered the extraordinary testimony on Tuesday before […]
An apology from the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) to its former Tonse Alliance partners has instead laid bare the scale of ill-feeling that has built up among Malawi’s opposition parties since the coalition’s collapse, with two former partners dismissing the gesture as too late to matter. MCP publicity secretary Jessie Kabwila used an interview with […]
Malawi’s opposition has launched a stinging attack on the parliamentary inquiry investigating the fatal Chikangawa plane crash, accusing organisers of politicising the process after reports emerged that former President Lazarus Chakwera and former Minister of Information and Digitalisation Moses Kunkuyu could be summoned to testify. The attack came in a memorandum dated 31 August 2026, […]
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 […]
There is a version of events from 10 June 2024 that Malawians have been asked to accept for over a year: that a plane went missing, that confusion reigned, that a government did its best amid the chaos of an unfolding tragedy. Testimony now emerging before Parliament’s ad hoc committee investigating the Chikangawa crash suggests […]
Members of Parliament investigating the June 10 military aircraft crash that killed former Vice-President Saulos Chilima and eight others turned their fire on Mzuzu Airport officer-in-charge Joseph Moyo on Friday, accusing him of relaying unverified weather information directly to pilots while bypassing the facility’s certified meteorological experts entirely. Zomba Thondwe MP Dumisani Lindani led a […]
A discrepancy has emerged between the final position reported by the pilot of the military aircraft that crashed near Chikangawa in June last year, killing former vice-president Saulos Chilima and eight others, and the flight-tracking data contained in the German Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation’s interim report, a parliamentary inquiry has heard.
A former weather station chief has delivered explosive testimony to the parliamentary inquiry investigating the Chikangawa plane crash that killed Vice-President Saulos Chilima and eight others, telling the committee the doomed military aircraft could in fact have landed safely at Mzuzu Airport on the morning of the tragedy. Olive Chavunguma, who served as officer-in-charge at […]
A former officer in charge at Mzuzu Climate Change and Meteorological Station has delivered stark testimony to the Parliamentary Ad-Hoc Committee investigating the Chikangawa plane crash, confirming that weather conditions on the morning of the fatal flight were dangerous for aircraft movements. Olive Chavunguma told the committee that visibility at Mzuzu Airport stood at just […]