An aircraft carrying Malawi Vice President Saulos Chilima, 51, has gone missing after it left the capital Lilongwe, according to President Lazarus Chakwera.
The plane, which was carrying nine others, departed on Monday at 9:17 a.m. local time but failed to make its planned landing at Mzuzu International Airport. The trip was only intended to last about 45 minutes.
The plane nearly made it to its destination, but the pilot couldn’t land due to bad weather, Chakwera said in an address to the nation. Authorities advised the plane to turn around but didn’t hear from it again.
“The pilot was unable to land the plane due to poor visibility,” the president said. “Aviation authorities advised [the] aircraft to return to Lilongwe, but the authorities soon lost contact.”
Shannon Vavra is a national security reporter for The Daily Beast covering the politics of war, national security, hacking, disinformation, and espionage. She previously worked at Axios and CyberScoop, where she covered the NSA, Cyber Command, and cyber-espionage. She received her bachelor’s degree from Tufts University in international relations with a specialty in Europe and the former Soviet Union.
This article was originally published on The Daily Beast and partially republished here, with permission.
