BLANTYRE, Malawi — Search efforts are underway after a military aircraft carrying the vice president of Malawi and nine other people vanished on Monday while making a quick flight from the capital to a hilly area in the north of the nation, according to the president’s office. At 9.17 a.m., the aircraft carrying 51-year-old Vice President Saulos Chilima took off from Lilongwe, the capital of southern Africa.
About 45 minutes later, the plane vanished from radar and failed to make the scheduled landing at Mzuzu International Airport, some 370 kilometers (230 miles) to the north.
An official statement from the office of Malawian President Lazarus Chakwera stated that “all attempts to establish contact with the aircraft since it went off radar have failed thus far.”
According to his office, Chakwera canceled a vacation to the Bahamas and launched a search operation. None of the other passengers were identified. The capital and third-largest city in Malawi is Mzuzu, which also serves as the region’s hub. It is situated in a steep, wooded region that is dominated by the massive pine plantations of the Viphya mountain range.
Soldiers, police officials, and other searchers were combing through one of those wooded regions close to Mzuzu, according to a report from Malawi’s The Times media group, in an attempt to find any indications of the jet.
Credit: Associate Press
