Malaysia Air Flight 370

Another Jet Mysteriously Vanished in 2003 Boeing 727 left Uganda in 2003 and remains missing

For those suggesting that the disappearance of Flight 370 is unparalleled in aviation history, Vocativ would like to remind them that another large Boeing jet took off from an airstrip in Angola in 2003 and hasn't been seen since. Big difference: That jet had no passengers aboard, but the circumstances surrounding its disappearance are pretty strange nonetheless. Two mechanics-American Ben Charles Padilla and Congolese assistant John Mikel Mutantu-boarded the Boeing 727 on a Luanda airstrip to get it in shape for its next flight. Neither had a pilot's license, which is why flight controllers were stunned when the plane taxied to the runway and then took off... 

http://www.blacklistednews.com/Anot...03_and_remains_missing/33732/0/38/38/Y/M.html

I suppose it will show up one day. Probably not a very big black market for parts stripped from a 777. I don't believe it sunk in the ocean.

I don't believe its in the drink either.

Going to be a fantastic story when it finally comes to a head.

Billybob said:

Another Jet Mysteriously Vanished in 2003 Boeing 727 left Uganda in 2003 and remains missing

For those suggesting that the disappearance of Flight 370 is unparalleled in aviation history, Vocativ would like to remind them that another large Boeing jet took off from an airstrip in Angola in 2003 and hasn't been seen since. Big difference: That jet had no passengers aboard, but the circumstances surrounding its disappearance are pretty strange nonetheless. Two mechanics—American Ben Charles Padilla and Congolese assistant John Mikel Mutantu—boarded the Boeing 727 on a Luanda airstrip to get it in shape for its next flight. Neither had a pilot's license, which is why flight controllers were stunned when the plane taxied to the runway and then took off... 

http://www.blacklistednews.com/Anot...03_and_remains_missing/33732/0/38/38/Y/M.html

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Curious to know how air traffic controllers would know they did not have licenses. Think someone is probably taking a little poetic license in the writing of that story.

SoonerATC said:

Curious to know how air traffic controllers would know they did not have licenses. Think someone is probably taking a little poetic license in the writing of that story.

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Typically A&P mechanics are not rated pilots. They can taxi around for maintenance purposes, and coordinate with ATC. I suspect their lackof ratings was later confirmed. Obviously the controllers would not know about their ratings. Sloppy journalism abounds.

I had not heard about this incident.

Seven years after her brother disappeared from Quatro de Fevereiro International Airport in Angola, Benita Padilla-Kirkland is trying to persuade the FBI to re-open his case. She believes she has the “new information” agents told her they require. But she suspects that the agency already has more information than agents will admit to.

Kirkland’s brother, Ben Charles Padilla, a certified flight engineer, aircraft mechanic, and private pilot, disappeared while working in the Angolan capital, Luanda, for Florida-based Aerospace Sales and Leasing. On May 25, 2003, shortly before sunset, Padilla boarded the company’s Boeing 727-223, tail number N844AA. With him was a helper he had recently hired, John Mikel Mutantu, from the Republic of the Congo. The two had been working with Angolan mechanics to return the 727 to flight-ready status so they could reclaim it from a business deal gone bad, but neither could fly it. Mutantu was not a pilot, and Padilla had only a private pilot’s license. A 727 ordinarily requires three trained aircrew.

According to press reports, the aircraft began taxiing with no communication between the crew and the tower; maneuvering erratically, it entered a runway without clearance. With its lights off and its transponder not transmitting, 844AA took off to the southwest, and headed out over the Atlantic Ocean. The 727 and the two men have not been seen since.

Who was flying 844AA? Had something happened to make Padilla take that desperate chance? Or was someone waiting inside the airplane? Leased to deliver diesel fuel to diamond mines, the 727 carried 10 500-gallon fuel tanks and a few passenger seats in its cabin. Less than two years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the 727’s freakish departure triggered a frantic search by U.S. security organizations for what intelligence sources said could have been a flying bomb.

Retired U.S. Marine General Mastin Robeson, commander of U.S. forces in the Horn of Africa when 844AA went missing, says word of the 727 “came up through the intelligence network.” According to Robeson, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) considered moving U.S. fighter aircraft to Djibouti on the Red Sea coast, where the Combined Joint Task Force shares a base with the French military. Robeson continues: “It was never [clear] whether it was stolen for insurance purposes…by the owners, or whether it was stolen with the intent to make it available to unsavory characters, or whether it was a deliberate concerted terrorist attempt. There was speculation of all three.”

Speculation that the theft of 844AA posed a terrorist threat ended, though it’s unclear why. Perhaps National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency technicians saw signs of a crash in satellite imagery-debris or an oil slick in the Atlantic, for example-or evidence that a large aircraft had landed on one of a half-dozen unpaved, 8,000-foot runways in the Congo, north of Angola. Agency spokesperson Susan Meisner would not comment, saying that the NGIA was not the lead agency in the case. (A CIA spokesperson also declined comment, as did a spokesperson from the Department of Homeland Security. FBI agents also refused comment, citing national security concerns.) Perhaps the speculation ended more gradually, after weeks without clues or sightings stretched into months. The disturbed hornet’s nest of a global security alert-the searches, bulletins, and interrogations-quieted, and in 2005, the FBI closed its case. I have filed Freedom of Information Act requests with the CIA and FBI and have followed in at least some of the FBI’s footsteps, interviewing the people who flew 844AA to Angola and worked with it there, hoping to understand how a 727 could just disappear...

http://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/the-727-that-vanished-2371187/?all&no-ist

Strange story.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: Pilot spoke to ground control after systems shutdown

A senior Malaysian official said Sunday that one of the plane's pilots -- either Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, or co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27, or an unknown person -- spoke to traffic control after the plane diverted from its flight path and after its signaling system had been disabled.

"All right, good night," someone reportedly told air traffic control.

“This will tell you something…because this is something not normal that the pilot would do,” Malaysian Air Force Maj. General Affendi Buang said of the mysteriously calm last words.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-N...systems-shutdown/1541395025713/?spt=sec&or=tn

Oklahomabassin said:

I suppose it will show up one day. Probably not a very big black market for parts stripped from a 777. I don't believe it sunk in the ocean.

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Without an 8130-3 for nearly every part on that airplane, those parts would be useless, as they couldn't be put on any aircraft under EASA, FAA, or even Chinese authority. That would narrow their value as spares down to nothing.

Damn.