Fallen vice-president Saulos Chilima’s former aide Joshua Valera has told the parliamentary inquiry into the June 10 2024 military plane crash that killed Chilima and eight others that the search mission was halted around 9.30pm.
His narration to the Ad hoc Committee of Parliament investigating the crash in Nthungwa Hill on the Nkhata Bay side of Viphya Plantation, widely known as Chikangawa Forest, is in sharp contrast to sentiments by former president Lazarus Chakwera who dismissed media reports that the search was abandoned until break of day on June 11 2024.
Responding to a question from Mwanza Central legislator Felix Njawala at Parliament Building in Lilongwe yesterday, Valera, a cousin to Chilima who worked as his special adviser and joined the search team, said the search was halted due to poor visibility.
He said: “I can confirm that the search team, which was being commanded from the Northern Region Police Headquarters where Commissioner [Richard] Luhanga [now Inspector General of Police] was the head, was stopped due to visibility challenges, lack of proper gear… General lack of preparedness, I would say.”
But Valera said he was not aware that some civilians volunteered to continue with the search and were stopped.
In his televised update at 11.15pm on June 10 2024, Chakwera said signals from telecommunications towers located the plane “within a 10-kilometre radius” of Raiply Limited in Viphya Plantation and that Malawi Defence Force (MDF) soldiers were still on the ground carrying out the search.
He said: “I have given strict orders that the operation should continue until the plane is found.
“I have also directed the MDF officials who are overseeing the operation to give you [the public] all regular updates on how the operation is going so that we can all be informed about the progress of establishing what happened to our loved ones, our colleagues and our fellow compatriots who were on board that flight.”
The report of the inquiry Chakwera commissioned also stated that the search was not stopped.
When asked by committee chairperson Walter Nyamilandu what he could have done differently, Valera said he would have insisted on stopping Chilima from travelling and using the aircraft as the family of Kasambara had understood the complication surrounding his travel, having landed the previous day from South Korea through South Africa.
He said that during an interaction with Chilima at his Area 43 residence on the night of June 9 2024, he and another aide implored that the vice-president not to travel, but he stood his ground.
“You do not know how close Ralph was to me and how helpful he had been since I met him more than 20 years ago. I will have to go. If I am going to die, all of us will die one day anyway, so let it be,” Valera quoted Chilima as having said and told the committee that the remarks made him to stop arguing.
He also said the family is hoping that the new inquiry will close the gaps in the previous reports to get closure.
Valera said he was informed about the missing aircraft at around 11am while at the funeral of Kasambara in Nkhata Bay and immediately travelled to Mzuzu where search efforts were later in the afternoon mounted by officers from MDF and Malawi Police Service who were joined by civilian well-wishers.
He estimated that the crash site is 30 kilometres (km) from Raiply, but the search team headed “the wrong way, towards Mzimba Boma which I estimate to be about 70 kilometres”. He added that the search was based on eyewitness accounts and hearsay.
On the fateful day, the MDF aircraft number MAF T03 left Mzuzu Airport at 7.05am and landed at Kamuzu International Airport (KIA) in Lilongwe at 7.48am to pick Chilima and his entourage to Mzuzu en route to Nkhata Bay for Kasambara’s funeral. Others on board the plane were former first lady Shanil Dzimbiri, Lukas Kapheni, Chisomo Chimaneni, Dan Kanyemba and Abdul Lapukeni. The flight was operated by Colonel Owen Sambalopa, Major Flora Selemani and Major Wales Aidin from MDF.
The aircraft departed KIA at 9.17am, but did not reach Mzuzu.
The committee continues with its engagement in its 90 day fresh inquiry into circumstances that led to Chikangawa plane crash.
