An aircraft carrying Malawi\u2019s Vice-President Saulos Chilima and nine others has gone missing, a statement from the president\u2019s office has said.<\/p>\n
The Malawi Defense Force aircraft \u201cwent off the radar\u201d after it left the capital, Lilongwe, on Monday morning, it added.<\/p>\n
The president ordered a search and rescue operation after aviation officials were unable to contact the aircraft.<\/p>\n
It was supposed to land at Mzuzu International Airport, in the country\u2019s north, just after 10:00 local time (09:00 BST).<\/p>\n
After being told of the incident by the Defence Force\u2019s commander, Malawian President Lazarus Chakwera cancelled his flight to the Bahamas, which was scheduled for Monday evening.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe public will be updated of any developments on the situation as facts are established,\u201d the president\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n
The reason for the aircraft\u2019s disappearance is not yet known, General Valentino Phiri told Chakwera.<\/p>\n
Moses Kunkuyu, Malawi\u2019s information minister, told the BBC efforts to find the aircraft are \u201cintensive\u201d.<\/p>\n
Chilima was on his way to represent the government at the burial of former cabinet minister Ralph Kasambara, who died three days ago.<\/p>\n
Kunkuyu said: \u201cThe airport he was to land, which is in the northern part of Mzuzu, was the closest to where the funeral was taking place.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2022, Dr Chilima was arrested and charged on allegations that he accepted money in exchange for awarding government contracts .<\/p>\n
Last month, the court dropped the charges, giving no reasons for this decision.<\/p>\n
Who was Saulos Chilima?<\/strong><\/p>\n Prior to his political career, Dr Chilima held key leadership roles in multinational companies like Unilever and Coca Cola<\/p>\n He is 51 years old, married with two children.<\/p>\n Dr Chilima is described on the government\u2019s website as a \u201cperformer\u201d, \u201cworkaholic\u201d and \u201can achiever\u201d.<\/p>\n He holds a PhD degree in Knowledge Management.<\/p>\n The post Aircraft carrying Malawi vice-president goes missing<\/a> first appeared on KBC<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An aircraft carrying Malawi\u2019s Vice-President Saulos Chilima and nine others has gone missing, a statement from the president\u2019s office has said. The Malawi Defense Force aircraft \u201cwent off the radar\u201d after it left the capital, Lilongwe, on Monday morning, it added. The president ordered a search and rescue operation after aviation officials were unable to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51523\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}