Tales of plane crash reports
Nearly three months after vice-president Saulos Chilima and eight others died in a military plane crash in Mzimba, two investigations have been undertaken, but Malawians are yet to know what happened on June 10 2024.
Immediately after the mangled wreck of the ill-fated Malawi Air Force (MAF) flight MAF-T03 was found near Nthungwa Hill in Viphya Plantation, President Lazarus Chakwera said all people on board “died instantly on impact” and that findings of investigations would be made public.
Malawi Defence Force (MDF) was the first to go on site to investigate the circumstances that caused the accident before German investigators went to the scene and promised to release findings by end of August.
In case of the MDF probe, details have emerged that the military team and Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) also concluded their probe and submitted their reports.
MDF Commander General Velentino Phiri in a telephone interview yesterday said their report was submitted to “necessary authorities”.
He was responding to our question on whether MDF shared its findings with the President who is its Commander-in-Chief and sanctioned the probe.
Said Phiri: “I should not say to the President, but to necessary authorities… I think that was at the end of July.”
In a separate interview yesterday, DCA acting director general Samuel Kalua said the authority did not conduct an investigation, but compiled an incident report on the crash and shared it with investigators since the plane used civilian infrastructure.
He said: “We continue to provide information to the investigators whenever we are requested.”
The explanations come days after the President, in an interview with German’s Deutsche Welle, sent conflicting signals on the German experts’ report.
On the one hand, the President seemed to indicate that a report had been submitted to government, but on the other his response to the interviewer was that the German experts’ report was yet to come and once it is in, it would be shared publicly.
In an e-mail response yesterday, the German investigators from German Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation (BFU) also confirmed that they are yet to share their report with the Malawi Government.
The Malawi Government commissioned this investigation and as client they are expected to have the report first before anyone.
Put to him if this was the arrangement, Minister of Information and Digitisation Moses Kunkuyu said they do not have a problem with the arrangement.
In his address on June 11, a day after the crash, the President spoke with certainty that passengers on the plane “were killed on impact”.
On what informed the President’s view in the absence of an investigation, the minister said this was not the opinion of the President, but those who informed him of the situation.
“Probably we should wait for the autopsy report and question the President’s assertion from there if there is a chance in this world that what was seen on the scene could have a dot of life anywhere in this world,” said Kunkuyu.
When contacted yesterday, presidential press secretary Anthony Kasunda referred The Nation to Kunkuyu’s statement issued earlier yesterday.
The Nation, among others, reached out to Kasunda for clarification on whether the President has received any report on the crash from any agency, including MDF and the DCA.
