Military Officials Call The Vice President's Plane Malawi Possibly Crashes In The Forest

Vice President of Malawi Saulos Klaus Chilima. (Twitter/@SKChilima)

JAKARTA - The plane carrying Vice President Malawi is likely to fall in the forest, with search efforts hampered by bad weather conditions.

The Malawian military said on Tuesday that the plane Vice President Saulos Klaus Chilima was likely to fall in the dense forest, but had not yet been found.

Top military official Paul Valentino Phiri told reporters search and rescue operations had been hampered by foggy weather around the Chikangawa Forest affecting visibility.

As previously reported, the Vice President of Chile was on a military plane with nine other people leaving Lilongwe, the country's capital, on Monday at 09:17 a.m. local time.

The plane is scheduled to land at Mzuzu airport at 10:02 a.m. but was unable to land due to poor visibility and was ordered to return to the capital, President Lazarus Chakwera said in a televised address on Monday.

"I hold fast to every fiber of hope that we will find survivors," he said, adding the search area was focused on a radius of about 10 km (6 miles) in a protected forest area.

"I have given a firm order that the operation must continue until the aircraft is found," he continued.

Aviation authorities have failed to make contact with the plane since it disappeared from radar.

President Chakwera said Malawi had contacted neighboring countries, as well as the Governments of the United States, Britain, Norway and Israel to support rescue efforts.

Meanwhile, Information Minister Malawi said the country had requested the help of the Angola space agency to locate the aircraft.

The vice president of Chile, who is seen as a potential candidate in next year's presidential election, was arrested in 2022 on corruption charges.

However, Malawi's court overturned a corruption charge against him last month after the director of public prosecution filed a notification for the case to be stopped. The Chilean vice president has denied any wrongdoing.