2003 Angola Boeing 727 disappearance

Background

The incident aircraft was a Boeing 727-223 airliner, serial number 20985, 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. The aircraft had been grounded at Quatro de Fevereiro Airport in March 2002 and sat idle for fourteen months, accruing more than US$50,000 in unpaid airport fees. It was one of two aircraft there in the process of being converted for use by Nigerian IRS Airlines. There are reports that the airplane's registration may have been changed to 5N-RIR, possibly as a fake registration.

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."

Incident

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, while Mutantu was a Congolese-French citizen hired mechanic from the Republic of the Congo. 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. An airport employee reported seeing only one person on board the aircraft at the time; other airport officials stated two men boarded the aircraft before the incident.

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.

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, 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.

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

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.

References

References

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11. Wright, Tim. (September 2010). "The 727 that Vanished". Air & Space Magazine.
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13. Good, Meaghan Elizabeth. "Ben Charles Padilla Jr.". The Charley Project.
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16. (7 July 2003). "Plane in terrorism scare turns up sporting a respray".
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