Parliament’s Ad-hoc Committee investigating the June 10 2024 military plane crash that killed Vice-President Saulos Chilima and eight others yesterday learnt that the country’s airports are in a dire state, with major facilities lacking certification.
Former acting director of the Department of Civil Aviation, Samuel Kalua, told the inquiry at Parliament Building in Lilongwe yesterday that key navigation equipment and adequate infrastructure were lacking, appealing for significant investment.
Kalua said Malawi’s major airports were not certified partly because the Civil Aviation Authority, which is responsible for regulating the sector, also faced deficiencies. He cited Mzuzu Airport which was registered but not licensed.
He said airport registration involves assessing whether an aerodrome has the runway, landing aids, safety systems and fencing required for safe aircraft operations.
Kalua also cited Kamuzu International Airport (KIA) in Lilongwe, where the instrument landing system was switched off because it was giving incorrect guidance after going for some time without recalibration while Bakili Muluzi International Airport in Chileka, Blantyre has had no instrument landing system since 2010, a development he said contributes to aircraft frequently aborting landings.
He told the committee that at the time of the crash, Malawi’s airports did not have voice and data recording equipment capable of preserving communications between pilots and air traffic controllers. The system was only installed in 2025, he said.
Kalua lamented that aviation operations are hampered by government bureaucracy because the country’s airports were being operated under a government department rather than an adequately resourced aviation authority.
“This is the requirement that was supposed to be there. Running an airport, it is only Malawi that runs it under a department, and running it under the department is subject to government bureaucracy,” he said.
Kalua said his office mounted a joint search and rescue operation shortly after the aircraft disappeared on June 10 2024. He said the operation was launched at KIA at 1:15pm with him leading the mission.
He said he asked then Secretary to the President and Cabinet Collen Zamba for mobile phone numbers belonging to people on board to try to use mobile network towers to help locate the aircraft.
Kalua said that at 2:20pm Zamba informed him that one of the phones was communicating with a network tower near Raiply in Viphya Plantation, prompting a search and rescue team from Mzuzu to head towards the area.
He said the joint search and rescue operation, guided by the Civil Aviation Act of 2017, led the search until it was called off on June 11 after the wreckage was discovered.
Earlier yesterday, the committee heard from retired senior assistant aeronautical officer Mary Chirwa, who was the briefing officer on duty at KIA on the day of the crash.
She said she had worked in the Department of Civil Aviation for 37 years and that on June 10 2024 she reported for duty at 6am.
Chirwa said briefing officers prepare, check, sign and transmit flight plans and provide information necessary for the safety, regularity and efficiency of air navigation.
She also told the committee that Major Flora Seleman, the co-pilot of the ill-fated aircraft, had filed a flight plan indicating that the crew intended to use a direct route rather than the normal route after the crew had encountered bad weather on the normal route on a previous flight from Mzuzu to KIA earlier in the day.
Chirwa stressed that briefing officers do not advise pilots on which route to take.
The committee also heard from KIA air traffic control officer Henry Magombo, who said he provided the flight crew with information on the weather conditions that day.
Mwanza Central legislator Felix Njawala (UTM Party) asked Magombo for the identity of the relatively new aircraft reportedly seen in the sky during the fateful day and Magombo told the committee he would provide the information at today’s hearing.
