A military plane carrying Malawi’s Vice President Saulos Chilima and nine other people has gone missing after it failed to make a scheduled landing on Monday.
The Malawi Defence Force aircraft conveying the Vice President went off radar after it left the capital of Lilongwe at 9:17 a.m. local time (3.17 a.m. ET), a statement from the office of the country’s president said.
Authorities say the plane did not arrive at the Mzuzu International Airport, about 380 km (240 miles) north of Lilongwe, and is no longer detectable by radar.
The statement reads: “All efforts by aviation authorities to make contact with the aircraft since it went off the radar have failed thus far.
“As such, the commander of the Malawi Defence Force, General Valentino Phiri, has since informed His Excellency Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera of the incident.
“The president has since cancelled his scheduled departure for the Bahamas and ordered all regional and national agencies to conduct an immediate search and rescue operation to locate the whereabouts of the aircraft.”
More to follow…
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