Boeing 727 spoorloos verdwenen

The Boeing 727 had not budged from its parking place at the airport in Angola's capital city for 14 months, so when the jetliner started taxiing down the runway, the men in the control tower radioed the pilot for an explanation. There was no reply from the cockpit, even after the plane rumbled to a takeoff into the African skies.

The plane has been missing since it took off from the Luanda airport around dinnertime on May 25, setting off a continent-wide search for its whereabouts that includes the CIA, the State Department and a number of African nations. Their fear is that terrorists could stage a replay of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, using the plane in a suicide attack somewhere in Africa.

U.S. authorities say it is likely the airplane was filched as part of a business dispute or financial scam. But even so, they say, there is a danger that unscrupulous people in control of a plane that size could make it available to arms or gem smugglers, guerrilla movements or terrorists.

It has been a commonplace for decades in Africa for the paperwork on commercial aircraft, especially small and mid-sized planes, to be dodgy, and for regulation to be extremely lax, industry officials said. Planes continually change ownership, and the aprons of some African airstrips are littered with wrecked aircraft stripped for parts.

But losing a 153-foot, 200,000-pound aircraft is no common occurrence.

"I haven't come across this before in 22 years in this business," said Chris Yates, a civil aviation security analyst for the private Jane's Aviation service. "It is not a stretch to think this plane could end up in the hands of terrorists. A number of companies involved in gun running [and other crimes] in Africa have indirect ties to various terrorist groups."

In the post-Sept. 11 world, even the possibility that terrorists could obtain a large aircraft prompts intensive government scrutiny. U.S. officials are alarmed because large swaths of Africa are under heightened alert for terrorism. Last month, 42 people, including 13 terrorists, died in a series of orchestrated suicide bombings in Casablanca, Morocco. In November, 16 people, including three terrorists, died in the bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa, Kenya.

Western intelligence officials say al Qaeda operatives are known to be casing possible targets in Kenya and other East African nations. On May 15, British officials suspended flights to and from Kenya after raising the perceived threat to its commercial flights there to the highest level, "imminent."

Homeland Security Department officials said that given the likelihood that thieves and not al Qaeda are behind the 727's disappearance, there is no cause for grave alarm.

"Yes, there is concern, and an ongoing search, but it is not one that could be described as a desperate search," said Homeland Security Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse.

U.S. spy satellites have snapped pictures of remote airstrips throughout Africa, starting with ones that are within half a fuel tank's distance from Luanda's "4 de Fevereiro" International Airport. The 28-year-old 727 had taken on 14,000 gallons of A-1 jet fuel shortly before it departed.

U.S. embassy personnel are traveling around Africa to ask host aviation ministries for any sign of the aircraft. "They haven't seen hide nor hair of it," said one government official. "It's so odd."

A large number of people and companies have owned, leased or subleased the aircraft in recent years. U.S. officials say that a few have been involved in shady endeavors. One firm recently involved in owning or leasing it, a U.S. official said, "has a history of allowing aircraft to be used by people for illegal things."

According to the private Airclaims airplane database, the 727's current owner is a Miami-based firm called Aerospace Sales & Leasing Co., which bought it in 2001 after it was flown by American Airlines for decades. In 1997, Aerospace Sales's president, Maury Joseph, was barred from running any publicly traded firm after he was convicted of forging documents and defrauding investors by exaggerating the profits of another company he ran, Florida West Airlines.

Joseph's son, Lance Joseph, said the company has committed no wrong. He said a firm that had leased the plane from Aerospace Sales -- a company whose name he said he couldn't recall -- had removed the seats and replaced them with fuel tanks. It flew the 727 to Luanda with a plan to deliver fuel to remote African airfields, he said.

According to the Airclaims database, a company called Irwin Air had planned to buy the 727 last month. No more information could be learned about the company.

Helder Preza, Angola's aviation director, told the Portuguese radio network RDP that the plane arrived in Luanda in March 2002, but that authorities prevented it from flying on because "the documentation we held did not pertain to the aircraft in question."

Angolan officials also demanded stiff ramp fees as well as settlement of private liens on the 727, Joseph said. Aerospace Sales was settling the disputes and planning to repossess the aircraft and fly it away when the 727 -- one of about 1,100 worldwide -- disappeared, he said.

Joseph also said that in recent months a former Aerospace Sales associate with whom he has had bitter financial disputes, Miami aircraft broker Mike Gabriel, had been in Africa stating that he planned to stop the plane's repossession and make a claim on it.

In the 1980s, Gabriel was convicted of importing 5,000 pounds of marijuana. He did not return messages left at his office requesting comment, and his attorney, Jack Attias, declined to comment.

Preza, the Angolan official, said that "the owner of the aircraft contacted us saying he wished to fly out of Angola." Then, he added, a man who presented himself as "the legitimate representative of the aircraft's owner'' -- a man Preza described as a U.S. citizen but whom he declined to name -- entered the aircraft. Moments later, Preza said, the man flew the plane away.

"The person who flew out the plane was no stranger to the aircraft," Preza said.

Another twist in the case is that the State Department is asking its diplomats in Africa, in searching for the 727, to ask host governments whether they have any information about two men that its cables say "reportedly" own the plane -- Ben Padilla and John Mikel Mutantu. The men are not listed as owners on any public database, and no other information about them was available.

Aviation expert Yates said the plane might never be located. "I suspect it's disappeared into the murky world of African aviation," he said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7403-2003Jun17.html?nav=hptop_tb

Terrorisme of gewoon diefstal?
dit verhaal zal nog wel een staartje krijgen

Land that has been designated as below the 100-year flood plane is ideal for an airplane home. Most zoning codes require the home floor to be located above the flood plane, which it is with the airplane home. "

Eigenlijk best leuk

Een Canadese piloot beweert het toestel op het vliegveld van de Guinese hoofdstad te hebben gezien. Sinds die datum ontbreekt echter opnieuw elk spoor van het vliegtuig.

Het toestel zou overschilderd zijn en een nieuw, Guinees kenteken hebben gekregen. Diverse letters van het oude kenteken zouden nog zichtbaar zijn. Volgens de Canadees is het toestel nu in handen van een Libanese zakenman. Hij zou de Boeing gebruiken om goederen te vervoeren tussen de steden Beiroet en Conakry.

Op 18 juni beloofden de Verenigde Staten met verschillende Afrikaanse landen mee te helpen bij de zoektocht. Men dacht dat het vliegtuig mogelijk in handen van terroristen was gevallen en wilde een herhaling van elf september voorkomen.

Het gestolen toestel stond al een jaar aan de grond op de Angolese luchthaven wegens onregelmatigheden.

van de FP

American authorities are investigating whether a Boeing 727 shattered in a deadly Christmas Day crash off West Africa was the same jet that vanished in Angola last year, setting off a worldwide search, a U.S. State Department spokesman said Friday.

Also, a Canadian humanitarian-flight pilot told The Associated Press he saw a 727 with the missing Angola jet's tail number at Guinea's airport in June a month after the jet's disappearance.

The plane's old tail number was not fully covered, and the plane was reregistered in Guinea and flown by Lebanese-owned Union des Transports Africains, pilot Bob Strothers said.

"We saw it on the ramp," Strothers said by telephone from the Guinea capital, Conakry. "A new registration had been painted on the aluminum part, and underneath ... you could see the old registration number, which matches the plane that went missing."

The plane that crashed off Benin on Christmas Day, killing at least 130 of the 161 people aboard, was Guinean-registered and operated by Union des Transports Africains.

Strothers said he believed UTA had at least two Boeing 727s at the time of the crash, making it impossible for him to judge whether the vanished Angola plane and the crashed Benin jet were the same.

Strothers first disclosed his information before the Christmas Day crash, in which the plane, carrying mostly Lebanese, clipped a building at the end of the runway and plunged into the Atlantic Ocean.

The information heightened the mystery surrounding the missing jet, which took off from an airport in Luanda, Angola, on May 25 and disappeared.

The United States has led an international hunt for the Angola 727, using satellite surveillance to check airstrips around the world, fearing that terrorists might have taken the Angola plane for a Sept. 11-style attack.

American officials also have cited a possible business dispute as a reason for the disappearance of the Angola jet.

Lebanese news media on Friday suggested the two planes were the same.

But aviation officials in Lebanon and others there who are knowledgeable about the country's aviation industry discounted the idea telling the AP that the plane that crashed off Benin appeared much older than the one that went missing from Angola.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Lou Fintor said, "We're aware of the reports. We're checking into them."

UTA offices in Guinea and in Lebanon have been deserted since the Christmas Day crash, with police surrounding the Guinea offices.

The airline's owner survived the Christmas Day crash, but he and the plane's Libyan pilot have not been seen publicly since leaving the hospital.

In Guinea, transport officials said they investigated Strothers' report that the planes were the same and found it to be false.

"He was mistaken," senior aviation deputy Dominique Mara said. "This wasn't the plane from Luanda. The Transport Ministry has denied this claim."

Also, the FBI has put out a worldwide alert for American Ben Charles Padilla, who allegedly was seen boarding the Angola jet with another man just before it disappeared.
According to Padilla's family in Florida, he was hired to repossess the jet after Air Angola failed to make lease payments.

His sister, Benita Padilla-Kirkland, told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel she feared the plane crashed or the 51-year-old Padilla was being held against his will.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=515&e=19&u=/ap/africa_mystery_plane

Tis natuurlijk wel erg toevallig allemaal...

[Dit bericht is gewijzigd door BAZZA op 03-01-2004 16:07]