Mystery of a Flight: What has happened to Boeing 727
In 2003 a Boeing 727 was reportedly taken from an airport in Angola by a man who only had a private pilot's certificate and has never been seen again.
History
Shortly before the sunset of 25 May 2003, air traffic control crews saw a peculiar thing at Angola's Quatro de Fevereiro International Airport. On one of its paths rode erratisch a Boeing 727-223, No. 844AA. The tower and the plane left the Atlantic with all lights off in the southwest were not attempted. The aircraft had 14,000liters of fuel filled and had not been painted silver, white, and blue enough to travel for up to 1,500 miles.
844AA was leased to a man named Keith Irwin at the time of his disappearance. In February 2002, Irwin acquired the aircraft from a Florida airline, owned by Maury Joseph, which supplied diamond mines with diesel fuel from Angola. But Irwin used the aircraft for a short period of time only and defaulted quickly. Joseph eventually hired the 727, now in a disrepair, to be repossessed in a safe and fly condition from a certified aircraft mechanic, a flight technician and private pilot named Ben Charles Padilla. On May 26, 2003, he planned for an Air Gemini crew to fly, but they found the plane was already gone when they arrived.
The latest seen boarding the aeroplane were Padilla and John Mikel Mutantu, a Republic of Congo mechanic. The U.S. intelligence community went on the alert and searched aircraft in many countries without any result since the incident took place in the heels of the 9-11 terrorist attacks. It looked like 844AA and its crew was gone.
Robbery
Many think that for his own financial gains Padilla stole the aircraft. He was an expert at 727s and could have received training in order to fly them while technically holding a private pilot certificate. Padilla's 727 expertise is exactly why he hired him before 844AA to repair and replenish others, according to Joseph. Padilla friends claim that he flown it up to an aviation traffic along the western border of Tanzania, where he had it removed and parts sold.
Fraud in insurance
No secret, since leasing it to Irwin, that Joseph's 19727 is a thorn on his side. The two men had arranged a $1 million purchase agreement, which would have the plane paid off in full within 30 days, according to Irwin, which made a deposit of $125,000. Over a year, however, the 844AA was idle, with over $4 million in unpaid airport charges. The contract was also part of the agreement. Investigators first believed Joseph had hired Padilla to recover his losses as part of an insurance scheme. Joseph wasn't an alien in fraud, as it became apparent. The SEC charge him with falsified financial statements and defrauding investors just a few years before the Securities and Exchange Commission. He was fined and forbidden from serving again as a public officer. However, Joseph took the FBI and voluntarily took a lie detector test in this case. He went by, allowing researchers to scratch their heads.
Chipping/hijack
At the time of the 844AA disappearance, the war on terrorism was on track and only two brief years have passed since the 9/11 US attacks. Maybe when they boarded the aircraft to end the day before the scheduled flight, Padilla and Mutantu were taken hostage. If it was hijacked for unfair reasons, it would never target it and eventually the U.S. government shut down its case.
Who or why did it, the question is still...
Where did it go?
It would appear that 844AA disappeared literally from the radar. Some think that the Angolan Air Force shot it down across the Atlantic. Others argue that it crashed just after takeoff somewhere. No scrap was ever recovered on land or sea, either way. And no bodies were recovered to date.
Final remarks
The timing of the disappearance of the aircraft could not have been coincidental on the eve of its repossession. Padilla, a skilled navigator, pilot, mechanic and flight Engineer, stole it, or did so on Joseph's instructions for his own financial savings. 844AA was seen as descending northward and around Kinshasa, the Congo, according to the pilot of Luandan, that night. With no proof of a crash ever found, Padilla has made its destination successfully, sold the aircraft for pieces and disappeared again in the night.
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