A heated debate over the late Vice President Saulos Chilima’s seat on the doomed military flight took an unexpected turn on Tuesday when a senior military officer challenged lawmakers to rethink their line of questioning.
Brigadier General Robray Ishmael urged members of Parliament’s ad-hoc committee investigating the Chikangawa plane crash to focus on issues that could help establish what caused the tragedy, rather than debating why Chilima travelled on an ordinary aircraft seat.
Ishmael was responding to questions on why the Malawi Defence Force did not transfer executive seats from Zomba Air Base to Lilongwe before the Vice President’s trip to Mzuzu.
He argued that such an exercise would have required significant time, resources and logistics, potentially delaying the flight.
“You would have to take the seats from Zomba to Chileka, fly them from Chileka to Kamuzu International Airport, and then begin changing seats while the Vice President is waiting,” asked Ishmael.
The officer said discussions about comfortable seats were unlikely to bring investigators closer to determining the cause of the crash that claimed nine lives.
“We have information to analyse. We have details to examine so that we can understand how those lives were lost,” Ishmael told the inquiry. “We are talking about comfortable seats and related matters. I think I have a problem with that, Chair.”
The exchange became even more tense when Ishmael was asked whether the MDF would have allowed the President to travel under similar conditions, a question he was ultimately directed not to answer.
Brigadier General Robray Ishmael urged members of Parliament’s ad-hoc committee investigating the Chikangawa plane crash to focus on issues that could help establish what caused the tragedy, rather than debating why Chilima travelled on an ordinary aircraft seat.
Ishmael was responding to questions on why the Malawi Defence Force did not transfer executive seats from Zomba Air Base to Lilongwe before the Vice President’s trip to Mzuzu.
He argued that such an exercise would have required significant time, resources and logistics, potentially delaying the flight.
“You would have to take the seats from Zomba to Chileka, fly them from Chileka to Kamuzu International Airport, and then begin changing seats while the Vice President is waiting,” asked Ishmael.
The officer said discussions about comfortable seats were unlikely to bring investigators closer to determining the cause of the crash that claimed nine lives.
“We have information to analyse. We have details to examine so that we can understand how those lives were lost,” Ishmael told the inquiry. “We are talking about comfortable seats and related matters. I think I have a problem with that, Chair.”
The exchange became even more tense when Ishmael was asked whether the MDF would have allowed the President to travel under similar conditions, a question he was ultimately directed not to answer.
