The June 2024 plane crash that killed former Vice President Saulos Klaus Chilima has reignited fierce political battles in Malawi, as fresh revelations call into question key elements of the original investigation.
An inquiry set up during the administration of former President Lazarus Chakwera initially concluded there was no foul play, attributing the tragedy to bad weather and human error — a determination later echoed by a technical report from Germany’s Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation (BFU). But this narrative shifted after President Peter Mutharika ordered a new probe following concerns raised by the Justice Minister about gaps in those earlier findings.
A subsequent parliamentary investigation uncovered that the military Dornier aircraft involved was never equipped with a cockpit voice recorder or a flight data recorder. That discovery means the so-called “black box” information, long treated as central evidence underpinning the 2024 conclusions, did not in fact exist — a disclosure that has provoked explosive debate in Parliament and at times brought legislative proceedings to a halt.
