{"id":10221,"date":"2024-06-11T05:17:24","date_gmt":"2024-06-10T17:17:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=10221"},"modified":"2024-06-11T05:17:24","modified_gmt":"2024-06-10T17:17:24","slug":"aircraft-carrying-malawi-vice-president-goes-missing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=10221","title":{"rendered":"Aircraft carrying Malawi vice-president goes missing"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"sc-43e6b7ba-0 bWSguZ\" data-component=\"text-block\">\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">An aircraft carrying Malawi&#8217;s Vice-President Saulos Chilima and nine others has gone missing, a statement from the president&#8217;s office has said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">The Malawi Defense Force aircraft &#8220;went off the radar&#8221; after it left the capital, Lilongwe, on Monday morning, it added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">The president ordered a search and rescue operation after aviation officials were unable to contact the aircraft.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">It was supposed to land at Mzuzu International Airport, in the country\u2019s north, just after 10:00 local time (09:00 BST).<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sc-43e6b7ba-0 bWSguZ\" data-component=\"text-block\">\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">Other passengers on the flight include Dr Chilima&#8217;s wife Mary, former first lady Shanil Dzimbiri and a number of officials from the vice-president&#8217;s United Transformation Movement (UTM) party.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">After being told of the incident by Defence Force&#8217;s commander, Malawian President\u00a0<a class=\"sc-c9299ecf-0 bZUiKB\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/topics\/c46l43x112vt\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener\">Lazarus Chakwera<\/a>\u00a0cancelled his flight to the Bahamas, which was scheduled for Monday evening.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">\u201cThe public will be updated of any developments on the situation as facts are established,\u201d the president&#8217;s office said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">The reason for the aircraft&#8217;s disappearance is not yet known, General Valentino Phiri told Mr Chakwera. Moses Kunkuyu, Malawi&#8217;s information minister, told the BBC efforts to find the aircraft are &#8220;intensive&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">Mr Chilima was on his way to represent the government at the burial of former cabinet minister Ralph Kasambara, who died three days ago.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">Prior to his political career, he held key leadership roles in multinational companies like Unilever and Coca Cola.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">Mr Chilima, aged 51, has been vice-president of the southern African country since 2014.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">He is married with two children.<\/p>\n<p>bbc<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An aircraft carrying Malawi&#8217;s Vice-President Saulos Chilima and nine others has gone missing, a statement from the president&#8217;s office has said. The Malawi Defense Force aircraft &#8220;went off the radar&#8221; after it left the capital, Lilongwe, on Monday morning, it added. The president ordered a search and rescue operation after aviation officials were unable to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":10222,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-world"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10221"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10223,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10221\/revisions\/10223"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}