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2003 Angola Boeing 727 disappearance

Stolen aircraft incident at Quatro de Fevereiro Airport From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2003 Angola Boeing 727 disappearancemap
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On 25 May 2003, a Boeing 727-223 airliner, registered as N844AA, was stolen at Quatro de Fevereiro Airport in Luanda, Angola on the west-central coast of Southern Africa,[1] prompting a worldwide search by law enforcement intelligence agencies in the United States. No trace of the aircraft has ever been found.

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Background

The incident aircraft was a Boeing 727-223 airliner, serial number 20985,[2] manufactured in 1975 and operated by American Airlines for 25 years until 2000. Its last owner was reportedly a US company called Aerospace Sales & Leasing.[3] The aircraft had been grounded at Quatro de Fevereiro Airport in March 2002 and sat idle for fourteen months, accruing more than US$4 million in unpaid airport fees. It was one of two aircraft there in the process of being converted for use by Nigerian IRS Airlines.[4] There are reports that the airplane's registration may have been changed to 5N-RIR, possibly as a fake registration.[5]

The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) described the aircraft as "unpainted silver in color with a stripe of blue, white, and red. The [aircraft] was formerly in the air fleet of a major airline, but all of the passenger seats have been removed. It is outfitted to carry diesel fuel."[6]

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Incident

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The approximate range of the 727 on the day it disappeared

On 25 May 2003, shortly before sunset (likely to be 17:00 WAT), it is believed that two men, Ben C. Padilla and John M. Mutantu, boarded the aircraft. Padilla was a pilot and flight engineer from the United States,[7] while Mutantu was a Congolese-French citizen hired mechanic from the Republic of the Congo.[1][8] A crew of three is required to fly a Boeing 727, and neither of the two were certified to fly it. U.S. authorities believe Padilla was at the controls.[9] An airport employee reported seeing only one person on board the aircraft at the time;[10] other airport officials stated two men boarded the aircraft before the incident.[11][12]

The aircraft began taxiing without communicating with the control tower. It maneuvered erratically and entered a runway without clearance. Air traffic controllers tried to make contact, but there was no response. With no lights, the aircraft took off, heading southwest over the Atlantic Ocean before disappearing.[1] Before the incident, the aircraft was filled with 53,000 litres (14,000 US gal) of fuel, giving it a range of about 2,400 kilometres (1,500 mi; 1,300 nmi).[12] Neither the aircraft nor the two men have been seen since, and no debris from the aircraft has been found.[1]

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Hypotheses

Padilla's sister, Benita Padilla-Kirkland, told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in 2004 that her family suspected that he had been flying the aircraft and feared that he subsequently crashed somewhere in Africa or was being held against his will,[13] a hypothesis shared by Aerospace Sales & Leasing president Maury Joseph, who had examined the plane two weeks before its disappearance. However, U.S. authorities suspected that Joseph's history of accounting fraud played a part, believing that the plane's theft was either caused by a business feud or resulted from a scam.[7]

In July 2003, a possible sighting of the missing aircraft was reported in Conakry, Guinea,[14][15][16] but was conclusively dismissed by the U.S. State Department.[17]

An extensive article published in Air & Space/Smithsonian magazine in September 2010 was unable to draw any conclusions on the fate of the aircraft, despite research and interviews with persons knowledgeable of details surrounding the disappearance.[1]

See also

References

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