Australia mining exec, pilot killed in Malawi crash
Source: Reuters
(Recasts throughout with new information) LILONGWE, March 8 (Reuters) - An Australian mining company executive and his pilot were killed on Thursday when their small plane crashed at the airport of Malawi's capital, the company and police said. "Garnet Halliday, the executive general manager for operations and development, has been killed in a light aircraft accident near Lilongwe, in Malawi, this morning," Paladin Resources <PDN.AX> said in a news release posted on its Web site. The company identified the pilot as South African Frank van Vuuren, and said no one else was on the aircraft. "Paladin will seek an open and thorough investigation and until the full facts concerning the crash are known, it is inappropriate to make further comment," it said. Malawi police spokesman Willie Mwaluka, who had initially said there were as many as 8 Australians on the plane, later said at least two Australians were believed to have died along with the local pilot. He later told Reuters the initial results were the result of a misunderstanding with the company. The plane was flying into Lilongwe from the northern Malawi town of Karonga, where Paladin has a mining project. The southern African country's government last year granted Paladin's local subsidiary licences to prospect for uranium in the northern part of the country including Karonga. The company already had a licence to mine for uranium in Malawi's Kanydkera district, where it has finished exploration and entered the second stage of a bankable feasibility study. It is also mining for uranium in Namibia.
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