By Pemphero Malimba:
Former commissioner of police for the Northern Region Richard Luhanga says the search-and-rescue exercise involving the plane carrying the-then vice president Saulos Chilima and eight other people faced several challenges, which resulted in the pausing of some aspects of the mission.
Luhanga, who is the current Inspector General (IG) of Police, said this at Parliament Building in Lilongwe yesterday, when he appeared before the Parliamentary Ad hoc Committee investigating the Chikangawa Forest plane crash.
He told committee members that he suspended some aspects of the search-and-rescue operation following a meeting of police commanders.
He said those at the meeting, which was convened at around 10pm on the day of the incident, noted that the search-and-rescue effort was affected by lack of equipment, poor road network, bad weather, poor coordination and misinformation and disinformation, among other factors.
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“We agreed to extend the search operation, allow some police officers to look for information pertaining to the plane crash and develop an operation order, with 400 personnel to be deployed for a thorough search of the plane the next day,” he said.
Luhanga said some officers continued collecting information that would be used in the search.
Luhanga said soon after the meeting, he called former IG of Police Merlyne Yolamu, informing her about the tactical pause of the mission.
“At around 11pm, I called the former inspector general, Mrs Merlyne Yolamu, informing her of the plan to suspend the search-and-rescue exercise due to the situation we were in,” he said.
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He said he also alerted some officials of the Malawi Defence Force (MDF) on the same.
He further told the committee that several items found on the plane crash scene, including firearms, were collected and submitted to National Police Headquarters and relatives of the deceased.
He said the firearms, which were intact, belonged to Chilima’s bodyguards.
“I wrote a letter [to the effect] that some of the items were given back to the deceased’s families. Up to now, the [Malawi] Police [Service] maintains a minute paper of sudden death and plane accident [of the deceased],” he said.
He said some money had been found scattered, with blood stains, around the crash scene.
“Police and MDF soldiers removed the bodies of the deceased from the plane. So, I was surprised to hear some people saying they had taken part in retrieving the bodies from the plane,” Luhanga said.
He said the crash scene showed no sign of criminal activity.
He also described the search-and-rescue mission as “archaic”.
“The search conducted was an archaic one. We should have been able to send equipment to assist the police and MDF conduct the search-and-rescue exercise,” he said.
Earlier during the day, Yolamu told committee members that she approved the suspension of the search-and-rescue exercise after considering difficulties that police officials faced during the mission.
“There was fog. During that time, between 10 and 11 June 2024, there was too much fog. He [Luhanga] said, due to the terrain in the forest, we could lose some men,” she said.
She said she assumed that Luhanga had engaged other security agencies such as MDF before seeking her approval.
“Mr Luhanga is the one who cancelled the search-and-rescue exercise. My assumption was that Luhanga had communicated with MDF officers. I thought Mr Luhanga had engaged others and came to the conclusion,” she said.
She said she initially directed Luhanga to oversee the search-and-rescue exercise after being told about the missing plane by former Secretary to the Office of the President and Cabinet Colleen Zamba at noon on the day of the incident.
She said the police faces challenges to procure equipment in emergency situations.
“It’s hard to conduct an emergency procurement exercise. They tell us to follow the right procedures, run adverts and the like. So, generally, we fail to do emergency procurement in the service,” she said.
Yolamu said police have a report on who collected properties, the kind of items and the state of the items during collection.
She also said police did not establish who took and leaked pictures of the crash scene.
The committee is chaired by Walter Nyamilandu.
Eight other people who died in the crash are former first lady Patricia Shanil Dzimbiri, Ministry of Foreign Affairs deputy chief of staff Abdul Lapukeni, Chilima’s medical officer Dan Kanyemba, guard commander Lukas Kapheni, aide-de-camp Chisomo Chimaneni, operators of the aircraft, pilot-in-command Colonel Owen Sambalopa, second-in-command Major Flora Selemani-Ngwinjili and engineer Major Wallace Aidini.
