We were all waiting for Saulos Chilima
Malawi's vice president Saulos Chilima was expected to attend the funeral of his close friend, Ralph Kasambara. He did not make it.
Jack McBrams in Mzuzu
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F69f2488c-37e1-4f61-8433-8f911ee8491c_2126x1417.jpeg)
On a rainy Monday morning, we set off on a 370km journey from Lilongwe to Mzuzu, to attend the funeral of Ralph Kasambara. Many of Malawi’s political elite had gathered there to pay their respects to the late activist, who served as attorney-general and justice minister.
Vice-President Saulos Chilima was expected to be among them.
As we drove through the Chikangawa Forest, thick fog enveloped the area, hampering our visibility and reducing our speed to a crawl. When we finally got to the funeral, we heard that Chilima was still on his way but would be arriving soon to bid farewell to his close friend.
As we waited, nervous murmurs spread through the crowd. Apparently the military plane on which the vicepresident was travelling, a Dornier-228, had been ordered to return to Lilongwe due to the poor weather conditions. It was impossible to land at Mzuzu Airport. The funeral continued without him.
That afternoon, as we began our drive home, a message arrived from one of our sources in the military. It said that the vice-president’s plane was missing – it had not landed in Lilongwe at 11am, as scheduled.
According to the source, the last contact with the plane had come as it was flying over the Chikangawa Forest.
There might have been a crash.
On high alert, we drove through the forest, scanning for signs of wreckage. But it was eerily quiet.
There was no other activity: no emergency services, no search and rescue. It was only later that evening that the government confirmed publicly that the plane had gone missing.
By that time, conspiracy theories about what had happened were already flying on social media.
The crash site was found the following day: Vice-President Saulos Chilima, along with nine others on board, was dead.