The President of Malawi announced today, Tuesday, that Vice President Saulos Chilima, who is 51 years old, was among 10 people who died when a small military plane crashed in a mountainous area north of the capital.

President Lazarus Chakwera announced in a live address broadcast by the state television that the wreckage of the plane was located after a search operation that lasted more than a day in dense forests and mountainous terrain near the northern city of Mzuzu. Chakwera stated that there were no survivors from the incident.

The president added that the former First Lady, Chanel Dzimbeiri, the ex-wife of former President Bakili Muluzi, was also on board the plane. There were seven passengers and three military crew members on the aircraft.

The group was traveling to Mzuzu to attend the funeral of a former government minister. Chilima had just returned from an official visit to South Korea on Sunday.

Hundreds of soldiers, police officers, and forest guards were searching for the plane after it disappeared on Monday morning while making the 45-minute flight from the southern African nation's capital, Lilongwe, to Mzuzu, approximately 370 kilometers (230 miles) to the north.

Chakwera stated in a speech late Monday night that air traffic controllers had advised the plane not to attempt landing at Mzuzu Airport due to poor weather and low visibility and had instructed it to return to Lilongwe. He added that air traffic control then lost contact with the plane, and it disappeared from radar screens.

The president described the aircraft as a small propeller plane operated by the Malawi armed forces. The tail number provided indicates it is a twin-engine Dornier 228 aircraft delivered to the Malawi Army in 1988, according to aviation information website ch-aviation.

Authorities said about 600 individuals participated in the search operation in vast forests in the Viphya Mountains near Mzuzu, including around 300 police officers, 200 soldiers, and local forest guards.

Chilima was serving his second term as vice president. He also held this position from 2014 to 2019 under former President Peter Mutharika. He was a candidate in the 2019 Malawi presidential elections and finished third behind the current president Mutharika and Chakwera. The Malawi Constitutional Court later annulled the election due to irregularities.

Chilima then joined Chakwera's campaign as his running mate in the historic re-election in 2020 when Chakwera was elected president. This was the first time in Africa that a court-annulled election result led to the defeat of the sitting president.

Chilima had previously faced corruption charges due to allegations that he received money to influence the awarding of government procurement contracts to the armed forces and police in Malawi, but the prosecutors dropped the charges last month. He denied these allegations, but the case raised criticism that Chakwera's administration had not taken a strong enough stance against corruption.

The search for the plane lasted more than 24 hours and sparked an international response. Chakwera stated that the United States, the United Kingdom, Norway, and Israel offered assistance in the search operation and provided "specialized technologies."

The American embassy in Malawi stated it provided assistance and offered to use a small aircraft from the Department of Defense, a C-12.

However, officials from the United Transformation Movement party, led by Chilima - which is a different party from the president - criticized the government's response as slow, stating that there was no transponder on board the plane, which is concerning for an aircraft carrying a high-level delegation.

Malawi has a population of about 21 million people and was classified by the World Bank in 2019 as the fourth poorest country in the world.