Zimbabwean businessman Wicknell Chivayo and his wife, Lucy “Lulu” Muteke, will be buried together on Thursday, October 8, nearly a week after they were killed in a helicopter crash that also claimed the lives of four others.
The families confirmed that the couple will be laid to rest at Glen Forest Cemetery in Harare at 2pm, while ruling out a public viewing of their bodies because of the severity of the crash and the fire that followed.
DNA testing was required to formally identify the victims after the helicopter was destroyed in the crash and subsequent fire, the families said.
In a joint statement, the Chivayo and Muteke families described the businessman as a man of “vision, faith and unmatched generosity” and his wife as a “gentle and loving soul”.
“They loved truly and they leave together,” the families said.
In a report by news outlet Zimlive, Chivayo’s uncle and family spokesman Herbert Chivayo said the bodies of the five crash victims, including two pilots and a security officer, were badly burnt after the helicopter went down in misty conditions at Kudenga Farm in Marondera.
The bodies appeared to have been exposed to jet fuel, and caught fire after the crash.
“The bodies were burnt until the fire died on its own, so you can imagine what the status is like. They were beyond recognition ,” Herbert said.
He said forensic officials had initially suspected that some recovered remains could be parts of the victims’ heads, but subsequent examination ruled this out.
“I have seen on social media people saying that the heads were found, but that’s not true. No head was found. There are some remains which forensic officials suspected to be head remains, but they found out that they were not. That’s the situation,” he said.
Chivayo, 46, Muteke, 35, and four other people died on Wednesday, September 30, when their helicopter crashed at Kudenga Farm in the Marondera rural area, about 70 kilometres east of Harare.
The aircraft had departed Gandami in Chikomba district, where Chivayo was constructing a rural home, and was returning to Harare when it crashed about 40 minutes into the flight.
Preliminary findings indicate that the helicopter’s tail made contact with the ground before the aircraft caught fire, with the blaze intensified by fuel on board.
The Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe and police are investigating the crash, including examining the wreckage and black box recorder.
The other victims were pilot Calvin Tafirei Soda, co-pilot Courage Mutavirwa and security aide Saneliswe Magagula.
The identity of the sixth victim was not included in the information released by the family.
Chivayo’s final hours were marked by the kind of high-profile generosity that had made him one of Zimbabwe’s most recognisable public figures.
About four hours before the crash, he donated US$250,000 (about Sh32 million) to Bulawayo football club Highlanders FC to help settle staff obligations during its centenary year. The donation pushed his contributions to the club beyond US$2 million.
Hours before the flight, Chivayo also posted on social media about luxury vehicles he had gifted to two lawyers who had represented him over the years.
Just four days before his death, Chivayo and Muteke attended a service at House of Treasures Ministries in Johannesburg, South Africa, where they publicly responded to an altar call to rededicate their lives to Christianity.
Chivayo rose from modest beginnings in Chivhu to become a prominent businessman through his engineering and infrastructure company, Intratrek Zimbabwe.
He became known for major state-linked contracts, lavish gifts and close relationships with political and religious figures.
His business career was also marked by controversy and legal battles. He served three years in prison following a 2004 fraud conviction and later faced fraud, money laundering and currency-related allegations linked to a major solar project.
He was, however, acquitted in 2024.
