BLANTYRE, Malawi — The Malawi government said on Wednesday that Vice President Saulos Chilima He will be honored with a state funeral after he died in a plane crash along with eight other people.
President Lazarus Chakwera had already announced 21 days of national mourning on Tuesday, when the remains of the small military plane in which Chilima and a former first lady were traveling were discovered in a mountainous area in the north of the country. Flags will fly at half-mast across the southern African nation during the mourning period.
Chakwera has appointed a ministerial committee to oversee preparations for Chilima’s state funeral, the government said in a statement. No date was announced.
Chakwera previously said there were 10 people on the plane, but the government now says there were a total of nine on board when it crashed.
All died on impact when the twin-propeller plane went down in a mountainous, wooded area in bad weather, the president said. Among the victims was former first lady Shanil Dzimbiri, ex-wife of former Malawian president Bakili Muluzi. Six passengers and three military crew members died.
The plane was carrying Chilima and members of his staff on a short flight from the capital, Lilongwe, to the northern city of Mzuzu to attend the funeral of a former government minister when he disappeared on Monday morning. The president said air traffic controllers had told the plane not to land in Mzuzu due to bad weather and poor visibility and to return to Lilongwe. Air traffic controllers then lost contact with the plane and it disappeared from radar.
Hundreds of soldiers, police and rangers searched for more than 24 hours before the remains were discovered in a forestry plantation south of Mzuzu.
The victims’ remains were flown to Lilongwe by a Zambian Air Force helicopter on Tuesday night, as officials and mourners, including Chakwera and Chilima’s wife, Mary, gathered at an airport. The bodies of Chilima and the others were transported from the airport in ambulances as soldiers lined the tarmac and saluted.
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