Former Secretary to the President and Cabinet Colleen Zamba has defended the government’s handling of the search for the plane carrying Vice-President Saulos Chilima, insisting authorities did everything possible after the aircraft disappeared on June 10, 2024.

NEWS| Investigation| Edwin Mauluka

Appearing before Parliament’s Ad-hoc Committee investigating the crash, Zamba rejected suggestions that the search and rescue operation was poorly coordinated or mishandled.

“To the best of my knowledge, yes, we did,” she said when asked whether the government had left no stone unturned. “The whole civil service rose to the occasion and the nation rose to that occasion.”

Mulanje North MP Gilbert Khonyongwa challenged her account, questioning what he described as failures in coordinating the military and police-led search operation.

Zamba maintained that the response was properly managed, saying the Malawi Defence Force (MDF) continued searching throughout the night even after police suspended operations until the following morning.

“I don’t believe it was not well coordinated. The MDF and police were on the ground,” she said. “I called the MDF and they said they had not stopped and were continuing with the search.”

Khonyongwa pressed further, arguing that the government had failed to discharge its duty of care to the vice-president and the eight other people on board with the urgency, diligence and professionalism the circumstances demanded.

Zamba stood by the government’s response.

“No, I don’t think anything could have been done differently. We did the best we could in the prevailing circumstances and under the pressure of the moment,” she said.

During nearly three hours of testimony via video link, Zamba revealed that telecommunications companies helped narrow the search area by tracking mobile phone signals from some of the victims.

She said she first learnt of the missing aircraft through Facebook, where reports suggested the plane had failed to land in Mzuzu because of bad weather and was returning to Lilongwe.

She immediately tried to contact then Principal Secretary Lucky Sikwese but could not reach him because of poor network connectivity.

“My assistant told me the airport commandant was trying to reach me,” she said. “When we finally spoke, he told me, ‘We can’t locate the vice-president’s plane on the radar.'”

After about 30 minutes without any information on the aircraft’s whereabouts, Zamba said she contacted Airtel and TNM, asking whether they could use mobile network data to help locate passengers’ phones.

According to her testimony, Airtel chief executive Charles Kamoto informed her that one of the phones was still active at around 12:30pm, with its signal traced to the Raiply Tower in Chikangawa. However, Kamoto cautioned that the network could only identify a general area within a radius of about 10 kilometres.

“I think it’s at that point that the search focused on Chikangawa because of this new information we had from Airtel,” she said.

At about 2:30pm, shortly before an emergency meeting at State House with the Inspector General of Police and the MDF commander to brief President Lazarus Chakwera, Zamba said Kamoto called again to report that another passenger’s phone had also been detected near the same tower.

She then contacted Raiply’s chief executive, who was in Lilongwe, seeking assistance.

He pledged to use their drones to search the area, she said.

Following the briefing, Zamba said President Chakwera instructed officials to inform the nation about the missing aircraft. Later that evening, he convened an emergency Cabinet meeting before addressing Malawians.

Zamba said she was summoned to State House at about 10am the following day, where she was informed that the wreckage had been found and that all nine people on board had died.

The parliamentary committee also heard evidence on Wednesday from Irene Gangire, Executive Secretary in the Office of the Vice-President; Samson Ngutwa, former Clerk to the Cabinet and now Principal Secretary responsible for Monitoring and Evaluation; and Kelvin Sentala, an acquaintance of Chilima.

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