N844AA

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On May 25, 2003, a Boeing 727-223 designated N844AA was stolen from Quatro de Fevereiro Airport in Luanda, Angola. Its disappearance prompted a world-wide search by the FBI and the CIA.

1 The 727
2 The theft
3 Ben Charles Padilla
4 In popular culture
5 References
6 External links

[edit] The 727

N844AA (serial number 20985)(made in 1975) was formerly owned by American Airlines. A Miami-based company called Aerospace Sales & Leasing Co. was reported to be its last owner.^[1] While on lease to Airangol it had been grounded and sat idle for 14 months, accruing more than $4 million in backdated airport fees, and was one of two at Quatro de Fevereiro in the process of being converted for use by IRS Airlines.^[2] The FBI described it as "...unpainted silver in color with a stripe of blue, white, and blue. The plane was formerly in the air fleet of a major airline, but all of the passenger seats have been removed. It is outfitted to carry diesel fuel."^[3]

In July 2003, the missing plane was sighted at Conakry, Guinea.^[4]^[5]

The sighting at Conakry, Guinea is in dispute as another ex-American Airlines 727, [N862AA]^[6], reregistered in Guinea as 3X-GDM was based there until it was destroyed in an accident in Cotonou, Benin

[edit] The theft

Some reports suggest there was only one person on board the aircraft at the time^[7], other reports suggest there may have been more than one^[8]^[9]. When the aircraft started taxiing down the runway, the control tower tried to make contact, but there was no response, and the tracking transponder was turned off.

Some reports describe the aircraft as making abrupt changes in direction while on the taxiways and during take-off, leading some to speculate that there may have been a struggle on board during the theft.

[edit] Ben Charles Padilla

Ben Charles Padilla

Ben Charles Padilla (born 1952) from Pensacola, Florida, a licensed aircraft mechanic, flight engineer, and pilot of small airplanes^[10] was aboard N844AA when it was stolen, and is believed by U.S. authorities to have been at the controls.^[11] He has not been seen or heard from since.

Padilla had arrived in Angola two months before the disappearance, to supervise work on N844AA on behalf of Aerospace Sales & Leasing with the intention of repossessing the aircraft.^[12]

Padilla's sister, Benita Padilla-Kirkland, told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel newspaper that her family suspects Padilla was flying the aircraft and fear that he subsequently crashed somewhere on the African continent or is being held against his will.^[13]

[edit] In popular culture

In the 2004 W. E. B. Griffin novel By Order of the President, a Boeing 727 is stolen from the same airport in Luanda on 25 May 2005, with one crew aboard and ultimately going missing.