As the Chikangawa plane crash inquiry continues, it has emerged that late Vice President Saulos Chilima changed his travel plans at the last minute, opting to attend lawyer Ralph Kasambara’s funeral himself instead of sending his wife, Mary.
What began as a routine scheduling decision has now become a key focus of the Parliamentary Adhoc Committee, as officials describe a chain of urgent instructions, missing paperwork, and rushed coordination in the final hours before the fatal flight.
Principal Secretary for Administration in the Office of the Vice President, Eric Yesaya, told the committee that Chilima had initially indicated he would not attend the funeral in person.
Instead, he planned to send his wife, Mary Chilima, to represent him at the burial while he remained with other official duties, including seeing off President Lazarus Chakwera on his trip to the Bahamas.
Yesaya said preparations for Mary Chilima’s attendance had already been made, including transport arrangements, before the plan suddenly changed on the evening of June 9, when he was informed that Chilima had decided to attend the funeral himself.
Yesaya further told the committee that he was not provided with full details of the Malawi Defence Force (MDF) aircraft charter process, which requires presidential authorization, a formal request to the MDF, payment arrangements, and submission of a passenger manifest before any aircraft can be released. He said these procedural steps were not clearly communicated to him at the time.
He added that he later learned the hiring of the MDF Dornier 228 aircraft had been facilitated by then Principal Secretary in the Office of the Vice President, Dr. Luckie Sikwese.
Yesaya said he was out of the country at the time, having travelled as part of an advance team with Chilima to South Korea and South Africa, and only became aware that the aircraft had gone missing after returning to Malawi through Chileka Airport later that day.
In a separate appearance before the committee, Former Secretary to the Office of the late Vice President, Lucky Sikwese gave his own account of the events leading up to the flight, saying that final paperwork for authorization had not been completed on June 9, 2024 because Chilima had instructed that the finalization process be done on June 10.
Sikwese told the committee that no formal memo had yet been written to President Chakwera seeking approval for the aircraft on June 9. He said he instead engaged the MDF Commander, who indicated that the aircraft could be made available after transporting the body of the late Kasambara together with members of his family to Nkhata Bay.
However, the MDF Commander reportedly stressed that the number of passengers needed to be reduced to eight. This, Sikwese said, led to Chilima directing that some individuals be removed from the travel list, including Emily Chinthu Phiri and Winnie Nyondo.
Sikwese further told the committee that he himself was later removed from the list in order to complete the necessary authorization paperwork. He also said that Secretary to the Government, Colleen Zamba, contacted him to ask whether there was space on the aircraft for Member of Parliament Richard Chimwendo Banda to travel.
He said he informed her that there was no available space, a situation that ultimately affected other intended passengers who were also left out of the flight arrangement.
