It’s been 19 years since a plane mysteriously disappeared after leaving the Luanda airport in Angola. On May 25th, 2003, a Boeing 727, registration N844AA, was stolen from the Quatro de Fevereiro Airport in Luanda, Angola. The TAAG Angola Airlines aircraft was in the process of being converted to join the IRS Airlines fleet in Nigeria. Its disappearance was an event that did not go unnoticed and sparked a worldwide search by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
It is believed that around 17:00 LT (+1 GMT) shortly before sunset, two men boarded the plane. One was US pilot and flight engineer Ben C. Padilla. The other was identified as John M. Mutantu, who was serving as a contract mechanic for the Republic of Congo.
Both men had been working on the plane’s mechanics to prepare it for flight. US authorities believe that Padilla was at the controls of the plane. It should be noted that neither man was certified to fly a Boeing 727, and the plane normally requires three crew members to operate it.
Many questions were left up in the air. Why did the two men board the plane without having a license and authorization to do so? Was there someone else inside the aircraft? How did it simply disappear? Since this disappearance occurred less than two years after September 11, 2001, the US security services were on alert to see if they were facing a new attack.
Investigations mention that an airport employee reported that he only saw one person on board the 727; other witnesses mentioned that two men had boarded the plane prior to its theft. The plane began taxiing without communicating with the control tower; it then maneuvered erratically and entered a runway without authorization.
At that time, control tower officials attempted to communicate but received no response. Prior to the incident, the aircraft refueled 53,000 liters of jet fuel, giving it a range of approximately 2,400 kilometers. With no lights, the plane took off and headed southwest over the Atlantic Ocean before disappearing. Neither the plane nor the two men have since been seen and no wreckage has been found either on land or at sea.
Colonel António de Almeida Tomé, an airline pilot for the Portuguese Air Force, explained to CNN that what is known is that Ben Padilla and John Mutantu were seen going to the plane. For Almeida Tomé, there are only two hypotheses: either the plane crashed into the sea, which is likely, given the inexperience of the two men piloting, especially at night, or it was a scheme prepared by the company.
In this case, the aircraft could have flown northwards, to the DRC, where it landed somewhere on the outskirts of the capital, on a pre-prepared runway”, and then dismantled, with the aim of “selling separate parts at a good price”. According to Almeida Tomé, second hypothesis is more likely because when there is a plane crash at sea, debris or oil slicks can be spotted.
So far it is not known what happened to the Boeing 727 registration N844AA, there are rumors of an alleged fraud, and others point to the fact that it was seen in Guinea, but all have been denied by US investigators.
The only thing that is known is the leaked diplomatic cables indicating that the United States conducted an extensive search in several countries. A regional security official who searched for the plane in Sri Lanka was unsuccessful. Investigations were also conducted in Nigeria, but to no avail.
