T he plane that killed Vice-President Saulos Chilima and eight others could have been found on the day it went missing, Parliament’s Ad-hoc Committee heard yesterday.
Community witness Colred Nkosi of Kasangazi, near the Nthungwa crash site, said he saw the aircraft on June 10, 2024 while working in his garden.
“That morning I heard a strange sound, different from a normal aircraft sound,” he said.
“Its movement was not normal. It was moving in a way that made me feel something was not right,” he said.
He said he only realised its significance later that afternoon when social media reports indicated the aircraft carrying Chilima was missing.
“That is when I started calling the police and other government offices,” he said.
Nkosi said he joined local search parties and shared the direction with Malawi Defence Force personnel.
“I was receiving information from soldiers and giving them information about where I had seen the aircraft going,” he said.
But search teams focused on another area.
“I think we could have found the victims on the same day,” he said, adding that he was dismissed as a fraud when a video of him describing the sighting circulated online.
Nkosi said when the wreckage was found, residents were kept at bay as soldiers searched for axes to open the aircraft and retrieve bodies.
The committee also heard from the area’s councillor Victor Muva and forest guards Wongani Ngoma and Mike Chirwa.
Muva said he was in Mzimba on council business when he was alerted. He said locals told him the aircraft had gone down towards Nthungwa, but police at Raiply insisted focus was on Kawandama.
Ngoma, who was stationed at Kasangadzi, said he alerted his friend, a police officer at Mzuzu State Lodge, about a possible crash site in Nthungwa. Chirwa corroborated the account, saying they then received endless calls from security officials, including from Area 30 Police Headquarters.
The officials arranged for escorts from Nthungwa Forest Camp to lead them to the site on the morning of June 11 2024.
