By Patience Longwe:
The Parliamentary Ad-hoc Committee investigating the Chikangawa plane crash has expressed concern over conflicting accounts of the time the wreckage of the aircraft was discovered, with the Malawi Defense Force (MDF) indicating 10:58 and the Malawi Police Service (MPS) says 9:30 am.
Chairperson of the Committee Walter Nyamilandu said the more than one hour difference is was concerning as it could have implications for the assessment of passenger survivability and the preservation of evidence at the crash site.
Nyamilandu made the remarks after the committee engaged former Commander of the MDF 101 Brigade, Major General Richard Tobias Chagonapanja, on Tuesday.
He said the conflicting accounts also raised questions about the coordination of the search teams during the initial response to the crash.
“We need to firm up a timeline, and we will continue with our investigations to corroborate information from Malawi Police and MDF to determine the exact time, because that has major implications”, he said
Nyamilandu said the committee will travel to the Northern Region for two days to corroborate evidence that has been handed over to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID).
He said while in Mzuzu, the committee is expected to meet police officers who were responsible for taking photographs and securing property at the crash site, members of the Fire Brigade team that participated in search and rescue operations, as well as volunteer eyewitness.
Earlier Chagonapanja told the committee that the MDF had rejected a proposal to suspend night operations and continued searching for the missing aircraft on June 10,2024.
He told the committee that other stakeholders had proposed a tactical pause until dawn, because of poor preparedness for night operations and difficult weather conditions characterized by thick fog and poor visibility.
“After consulting the MDF, General Commander Paul Valentino Phiri, I was directed to allow military teams to continue with the search, adding that by 10 pm, most teams had withdrawn from the area, leaving only MDF soldiers and Raiply patrols on the ground until the wreckage was found 27 kilometers north of Kasitu Camp”, he explained
Chagonapanja said locating the aircraft that was carrying former Vice President Saulos Chilima and eight others was constrained by multiple factors, including the absence of a functioning Emergency Locator Transmitter ( ELT), mountainous and heavily forested terrain, and adverse weather.
He also cited that interim findings by the German Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation (BFU) which indicate that the aircraft’s ELT was not operational at the of the accident because its battery had expired, saying the absence of an effective electronic distress signal made it difficult for rescuers to electronically detect the aircraft and establish its precise location.
He further told the committee that the testimony which witnesses Duma presented before the committee was false.
