Two Australians die in Malawi plane crash

LILONGWE, Mar 8 (Reuters) Two Australian mining executives were killed along with their local pilot today when their small aircraft crashed on landing at the airport at Malawi's capital, police said.

''We now know that all the three people on board have died after the plane crashed at Kamuzu International Airport,'' police spokesman Willi Mwaluka told Reuters.

Mwaluka had earlier said that as many as eight Australians were thought to have been on the chartered plane, but the passenger manifest had shown only three people aboard.

The plane was flying into Lilongwe from the northern Malawi town of Karonga, where Australian uranium miner Paladin Resources has a mining project.

''The plane was not going to Karonga as we said earlier but it was flying into Lilongwe where the two had some business meetings,'' he said.

He said police could not disclose the identities of those killed in the crash, or the cause of the accident.

Malawi'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.

REUTERS AKJ HT1732