PPRuNe Forums - Stolen in Africa

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- - Stolen in Africa - A B727! (https://www.pprune.org/african-aviation/91494-stolen-africa-b727.html)

Sorry, That pic you have on Airliners.net is the Wrong B-727.

And on CNN again ..

Saw an interview on CNN last night / early this morning where his sister said her pilot brother must be dead ....

Quote:

The family of a 51-year-old pilot from Miami fears that he crashed while flying a Boeing 727 that authorities say has been missing since taking off without permission from Angola in Africa last month.

Ben Padilla had been hired by a Miami-based firm to repossess the plane after Angola Air failed to make payments on it, Padilla's sister, Benita Padilla-Kirkland, told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel newspaper.

His family suspects Padilla was flying the Boeing that took off from Angola on May 25 and may have crashed somewhere on the African continent, his sister said. Padilla is an airplane mechanic and pilot who has flown cargo planes around the world for two decades.

The missing plane has been the subject of an international search since it disappeared. US officials in Washington have said that the plane was probably being used for criminal purposes but hasn't been linked to any terrorist plot.

Padilla responded last month to an e-mail from a relative informing him that his mother was in the hospital with a heart attack. More than a month later, his mother is recovering in Pensacola, but the family still hasn't heard from him.

"I know (he) would've called my mother," Padilla-Kirkland said. "His last e-mail said that he would call her when he could, and the fact that he has not called her is the first clear sign that he's unable. If he crashed or is being held against his will."

look in Somalia or Sudan... that is if it was nicked by someone nasty and provided it went that way... Provided it is not packed into a jungle or mountain somewhere.

With F25 t/o one could get the bird out with a low weight from much less than 6000ft (2000m). So roads, dry rivers and lakes are all good candidates where to take the bird.

Cheers

JJ

If it had crashed, a 727 leaves a pretty big debris field unless underwater. Satellites cover that area pretty good. http://heavens-above.com/ Further that someone by now would have said something about locals trading in scrap aluminum...
Eventually it may be found, but Im sure We wont know until long afterward.

Hey ther Bert.

Sure you agree that for example DRC is pretty big with a lot of jungle to cover all remains should it have crashed there. You are right though. No reports for natives selling hoards of aluminium, yet. Still DRC is Suprisingly sparesly populated in some areas.

I run several scenarios with both -9 / -15 engines and 50k and 55k lbs fuel on board with Jepp flightstar. I did the same with half tanks. Interesting results for possible destinations. There are a lot of places and ways to hide an aircraft from visual observations from satellites. Using infrared imagery or SLAR would make it easier to find the threeholer but would require a recce flight. Africa is pretty big to do that.

Cheers

JJ

JJ
Anything is possible. Living in las Vegas, im just working the odds......ha ha

This topic is now on CNN as we speak (in US)!!! The brother of one of the pilots speaking about it!

HR,

Let us know if anything transpires. Thanks mate.

Bakela

Usual "is it an act of terrorism" angle.

The brother said that it was normal not to hear from his sibling for a few months. Did not know if he was qualified to fly the B727!

The lady (sister possibly) said she had had an email late May which did not say too much except that he was "travelling".

Cheers

HR

The more the news centers on these folks from Florida, the more I think they are full of ( ). It gets them on TV....
Once all is said and done this will be an interesting story for sure....For now all We can do is second guess what really happened.

Thanks for the feedback HR. :ok:

Bert, agreed. This should be interesting once we get the REAL TRUTH and info. Oh yes, I found this...the Jack Daniels was my clue:hmm:...but then I decided this could not possibly be B Sousa.;):}

http://www.ahajokes.com/cartoon/yoda2.jpg

Bakela
I have never met the man, but dont say anything becuse I think I woke up one morning with his sister........

Bert
I dont think there is enough booze in the world to get me in the sack with that guys sister. Ouch thats gotta hurt:yuk:

Unfortunately I was a US Marine for about 5 years before I joined the Army. We did much worse after a bottle of Okinawan Slow Gin...

Without a Trace
Mysterious Disappearance of Boeing 727 and Pilot Remains Unsolved
By Adrienne Mand
ABCNEWS.com
April 19— Ben Charles Padilla, an aircraft mechanic, flight engineer and cargo pilot, traveled the world plying his trade for various private companies.

He'd often keep in touch with family members from faraway locales, so it was no surprise in May 2003 when he replied to an e-mail about his mother having a heart attack with news that he was in Africa refurbishing a plane and would contact her as soon as he could.
His family has not heard from him since, and the FBI believes the 51-year-old was aboard a Boeing 727 that took off without authorization from an airport in Angola on May 25 and promptly vanished. At the time, U.S. officials told ABCNEWS they suspected the plane was stolen to run drugs or guns, and some theorized it was crashed for insurance money.

Though there was fear that the former passenger plane, which the FBI says was reconfigured to carry diesel fuel, could be in the hands of terrorists eyeing a Sept. 11-style attack, there was no evidence to link it to terrorism.

The incident touched off an intensive investigation by U.S. intelligence agencies that continues nearly a year later. The plane and Padilla remain unaccounted for — and the mysterious circumstances around their disappearance leave many unanswered questions.

How could a plane vanish? Who has it now? And what happened to Padilla, who was no stranger to assignments like the one that took him to Angola?

Waiting for a Break

"It's been almost a year and I know really no more now than I did in the beginning," said Joseph Padilla of Pensacola, Fla., younger brother of the missing man. Family members are baffled by his disappearance but maintain Ben Padilla would not knowingly have been involved in any illegal activities.

Joseph Padilla suspects there may have been some sort of dispute of ownership between the company that hired his brother and someone else, and that Ben got caught in the middle.

Joseph Padilla stays in contact with the FBI and State Department for updates on the case and provides them with leads from reporters and his own research. There have been glimmers of hope for a breakthrough — a crash in Benin at Christmastime, a tip that the plane had been spotted in Guinea — but investigators have told him they were not the missing plane.

"[The investigation] is still ongoing," said FBI Special Agent Jeff Westcott. "We're investigating possibilities. Every now and then a lead will come in. The FBI, working with our agents overseas, will aggressively pursue that." But so far, he said, the leads "haven't amounted to anything."

The agency is considering any scenario, including terrorism, but "we really don't speculate," said Westcott. "It's a concern — I wouldn't really characterize it beyond that."

The State Department, which is in charge of locating missing persons abroad, has not learned much about Padilla's whereabouts. "It's still open," said Stuart Patt, spokesman for the Bureau of Consular Affairs at the Department of State. "We stay in touch with the family of the pilot, but they haven't heard anything. We haven't heard anything. It's really been a very long time since we've had any news or even any leads.

"Certainly there are a lot of hypotheticals," Patt said, without giving specifics. "We just don't have any basis yet for really being able to give an answer that would be meaningful."

A Frustrating Process

Joseph Padilla, who is retired, spends much of his time checking in with the FBI and State Department and looking for information about the case on the Internet. "I always look at every news organization in America and across the world," he said. "I do that late at night, almost daily."

He is being helped by Florida attorney Martin Pedata, who is working pro bono to try to obtain more information. The government agencies have said they cannot be more open because of privacy provisions in the Freedom of Information Act that would require Ben Padilla's consent for his relatives to learn more.

Pedata hopes to establish a conservatorship, which would legally allow someone in the Padilla family to act on behalf of Ben, but there's no precedent for the current situation. "There's really no case out there that says this could be done," he said. "Theoretically, under Florida law, the conservator could step into the shoes to try to get around the defense that they can't tell more details."

Meanwhile, the family — which has already lost two other siblings — has struggled through holidays without Ben and "not knowing the status of my brother is just about to drive us crazy."

"The government can see that we are ordinary people," Joseph Padilla said, saying he's told investigators, "'Look, I'm a big boy now. You can tell me if my brother's deceased and you know it.' "

But they don't know, nor do they know the fate of the last plane that was in his charge. And that worries Joseph Padilla, too.

"As an individual, I could care less about this plane," he said. "But as an American, I want it found because this plane has 10 500-gallon fuel tanks."

not te become too speculative - but i recently heard this plane showed up in the DRC: airports enough to land this giant...:hmm:

I heard a litte bird tweet that it might be still standing in Harare at the military base, since it was confiscated by Bob_ j_ _n MugApe's crowd.....

Lo Bru Contrax Dog from the plaas ;)

Do you mean the same 727 used by the "mercenaries" ? :uhoh: