An airplane carrying Malawi Vice President Saulos Chilima and nine other people went missing on Monday, according to multiple reports, sparking concern and leading to a search and rescue mission.
A statement from the Malawi secretary to the president and cabinet said the plane “failed to make its scheduled landing at the Mzuzu International Airport.”
Aviation authorities have not been able to make contact with the airplane since it went off radar, and Malawi President Lazarus Chakwera has launched an immediate search and rescue operation.
The Malawi Defense Force plane left Lilongwe at 9:17 local time (3:17 a.m. EDT) and was supposed to land at 10:02 (4:02 a.m. EDT), according to the statement.
The flight—which the BBC reported was taking him to the funeral of a former cabinet member—was also carrying Chilima’s wife and multiple officials from the United Transformation Movement, Chilima’s political party, according to the report.
This story is developing and will be updated.
Malawi, a southeast African country, has been led by Chakewera and Chilima since 2020, though Chilima has been vice president since 2014. The U.S. has had diplomatic relations with Malawi since 1964 after it became independent from the UK, and relations were improved after Malawi became a multi-party democracy in 1994.
Last month, corruption charges against Chilima were dropped by a Malawian court with no reason provided, the BBC reported. Chilima had been arrested in 2022 for allegedly accepting money in exchange for government contracts, though he denied the charges.