Well, hello to everyone in Acorn Land, and are we ready for another fantastic mystery on our travel around the world looking for some crazy events or happenings.
During this time of COVID, I’ve found myself watching more programs on television, and one of those was Manifest. The program follows the people aboard Montego Air Flight 828, who had been presumed dead until they reappeared after more than five years. In theory, the airplane simply vanished into a wormhole of some sort and reappeared five years later, and everyone on the plane didn’t notice any changes. When they landed, it was explained to them that their flight was thought to have crashed, and everyone again was presumed dead, but the strange thing was no one on the plane aged a day. Needless to say, the series has many twists and turns, always keeping viewers wondering, what’s next?
Well, how about we look at a strange happening of another airplane like in the show Manifest. Did this airplane disappear, never to be seen again, or is there another option at hand? Maybe, just maybe, at some later date, this 727 might just show up at an airport somewhere in the world and ask for clearance to land to the shock of everyone. Just to put the record straight, this is not the David Copperfield special back in 1981, and damn, now I feel old.
Well, if this sounds like your cup of tea, sit back, relax and enjoy the mystery of the missing airplane N844AA.
In today’s world, it seems strange that with all the technology we have that a commercial airliner can simply disappear. Never mind the Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappearance where it was believed the pilot committed suicide by disengaging all transponders and flew in the opposite direction to avoid contact until they ran out of fuel in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
Eleven years before the disappearance of Flight 370, another Boeing known as Angola 727, vanished from an airport in 2003. It was seen taxing down the runway without clearance and no communication between itself and the control tower before flying off out of view during an unscheduled take-off at the Quatro de Fevereiro Airport in Luanda, Angola. Neither the aircraft nor the two reported occupants on board at the time have been seen since.
Normal aircraft just don’t vanish in the modern world, but Africa has an entirely different set of rules when it comes to strange happenings. Africa stands alone with bizarre oddities between the vast amounts of natural resources, a wide variety of animals, and illicit trade of all kinds, from drugs to weapons being smuggled into the continent to back civil wars and terrorist activities. Nothing points this out more vividly than if you travel to many beaches in North Africa; many are still littered with landmines in place from World War II that haven’t been cleared. Depending on where you go, you are literally taking your life into your own hands when you visit this beautiful continent. You have the extreme wealth of a few and on the other hand, extreme poverty with many of its inhabitance. With this in the back of your mind, let’s take a closer look at the retired 727, tail number of N844AA, which disappeared on May 25, 2003.
For a bit of background, the 727 was in service for American Airlines for 25 years before it was retired. Considering its age, this aircraft was in very good mechanical shape because of the excellent care it received while in service for American Airlines. The 727 was then sold to Aerospace Sales and Leasing company based out of Miami. The aircraft got the attention of South African businessman Keith Irwin. Mr. Irwin wanted to lease it along with two flight crews to fly to Angola so it could be used to ferry petroleum to the diamond mines in that war-torn nation. Angola was in the middle of a civil war, and supplying these mines by road was impossible because of the extreme danger of rebels fighting the government to control the nation. The only way to keep these mines running was supplying them from the air, which Mr. Irwin saw as an excellent business opportunity. Irwin went into a joint venture with South African company Cargo Air Transport Systems to accomplish this task. The company and Mr. Irwin fronted $450,000 to obtain aircraft and crews to fly them into the mines. To say this was a risky venture is an understatement, but the payoff could be huge.
Mr. Irwin flew to Miami to get the aircraft needed along with two crews of three men each from a third leasing company, but the deal fell through, costing Mr. Irwin $140,000 personally. Scrambling for options, Irwin needed an aircraft, but the flight crews were held on a retainer. He then contacted Maury Joseph, the Aerospace sales and leasing company CEO, who told Mr. Irwin that he had three, 727’s to choose from. The two agreed to purchase or lease, depending on who you ask, one of the aircraft for 1 million dollars, in part because the plane would be far away from the United States in a war-torn nation. Maury Joseph agreed to remove the passenger seats to make room for the large containers which would hold fuel for the mines in Angola. A down payment of $125,000 was placed as a goodwill gesture and to hold one of the 727’s, but the remaining payment was due in 30 days. Mr. Irwin was allowed to take the aircraft to Angola, but the company wanted one of their pilots to remain with the aircraft until the final payment was made along with the six other crewmembers.
The 727 was flown to Angola, but the trip took over two weeks because the South African business venture failed to get the required licenses to land at their destination. This delay cost Mr. Irwin an additional $185,000, which depleted all the company’s funds for this venture. Two members of the flight crew of six wanted to leave Angola after living there for a week to add to the difficulties. It seems that their hotel was located next to an open sewer and their entourage of heavily armed men had them concerned for their wellbeing, and they gave up their salaries just to leave Angola. The remaining crew members began the flights to the mines but after a month decided to quit because of the extreme danger.
Once back in the United States, they told their stories of how dangerous the flights really were. One pilot with over 30 years of military flying experience reported that when they flew to the mines, they were under constant small arms attack while attempting to land. The landing strip itself was not paved and had small hills and valleys, making the landings extremely dangerous. The crew members witnessed many aircraft crashes while attempting to land, and the 727 got stuck several times in the soft clay.
Mr. Irwin’s business venture ended sometime later when he fled Angola after some questionable run-ins of his own. The final straw was when someone attempted to enter his hotel room at 1 am, but luckily for him, he had wedged a chair against the door, and the person trying to enter was scared away when he started yelling for security. Mr. Irwin escaped Angola, but he left the 727 behind grounded in Quatro de Fevereiro International Airport with steadily accumulating parking fees after only completing 17 roundtrips to the mines.
Using this aircraft for a purpose that it wasn’t built for was devastating on the converted 727’s airframe, and the value of the plane was greatly diminished. Mr. Irwin made two payments toward the aircraft and then defaulted on the remainder. Simply put, Keith Irwin had enough with all the shady activities and business practices in Angola and decided to cut his losses and get out of Luanda. The only thing left behind was the aircraft, but that would be Maury Joseph’s problem now, the Miami-based leasing and sales company CEO.
Looking to recoup some of the losses in his business venture, Maury Joseph realized that his 727 in Angola still had some value. The engines on the plane were relatively new and could be sold if taken off, but he needed his junked plane out of Angola. With the debts piling up fast and the aircraft slowly falling into disrepair, Ben Charles Padilla, an American contracted engineer, was dispatched by Mr. Joseph to return the 727 to flight-ready status to be flown to South Africa where the engines were to be removed and sold. This is where the story really starts to take off, pardon the pun.
Ben Padilla arrived at Quatro de Fevereiro International Airport along with a mechanic named John Mikel Mutantu from the Republic of Congo. Mr. Joseph negotiated with a local aircraft company named Air Gemini to help get the old 727 back into good enough shape to fly it down to Johannesburg, South Africa.
After a few days, the finish line was in sight, and Mr. Joseph could finally get this cursed airplane off his hands for good. He was so eager to see this happen that he flew to South Africa and was going to meet up with the buyer of the aircraft. He was already in Nigeria, so this trip wasn’t going to be too far out of his way, and plus he could promote good relations with the buyer.
One of the last things needed was a routine maintenance run-up test to check the engines. This is done by taking the aircraft out to a secluded part of the airport, locking the brakes, spooling up the engines to full power, and looking for any problems. If this final check was OK, then they could fly it out of Nigeria the next day.
Ben Padilla made arrangements with Air Gemini to gain access to the 727 and get clearance from the authorities to perform these tests for the run-up. On May 25, 2003, shortly before sunset, Padilla boarded the company’s Boeing 727, tail number N844AA. With him was John Mikel Mutantu, the mechanic who Ben Padilla brought with him to Angola.
The airplane was to taxi to the end of an unused runway and perform these critical tests so a hired flight crew could fly it to South Africa the next day. Ben Padilla was a certified flight engineer, aircraft mechanic, and private pilot but nowhere close to being able to fly the Boeing 727 proficiently. This plane ordinarily requires three trained aircrew, a pilot, co-pilot, and flight engineer to operate safely, but the engineer’s position could be streamlined and replaced with an experienced co-pilot in a pinch.
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 and transponder turned off, the 727 took off to the southwest and headed out over the Atlantic Ocean, never to be seen again.
Who was on the airplane has long been debated by many who are familiar with this case. At the time of the Boeing 727’s unauthorized departure, two men were reportedly known to be on board, that being Ben Padilla and the mechanic John Mikel Mutantu. Although a report was filed where an airport official saw only one person board the plane and that would presumably have been Ben Padilla.
Remember that neither men were certified to pilot a Boeing 727, but Ben Padilla was more than capable of taxiing the plane to another part of the airport and perform the run-up test. Despite this, Ben Padilla is strongly suspected of having been the one piloting the aircraft when it took off, but no one exactly knows why.
When this plane disappeared, it was less than two years before, that 9/11 happened. This 727 was turned into a flying gas tank, and needless to say, it caught the attention of people in the intelligence world. About every agency with about every letter in the alphabet was interested in this case, and no expense was too great to find the whereabouts of aircraft N844AA.
There was a worldwide search for the plane involving the FBI, CIA, US Department of State, Homeland Security, and US Central Command (CENTCOM). Despite all these agencies efforts, the plane and its occupants have yet to be located, but strangely, the cases have all been closed. This would most likely indicate that the whereabouts of aircraft N844AA have been found and is no longer a threat to national security. The bad thing is then that you have family members caught in a no man’s land, where their loved ones have disappeared along with the aircraft. With no official answer, these families sit by a telephone waiting for a call that most likely will never come.
Several reports of the incident during the United States diplomatic cables leak in 2010 indicated that the US searched for the aircraft in multiple countries following the event. A Regional Security Officer searched for it in Sri Lanka without result. A ground search was also conducted by diplomats stationed in Nigeria at multiple airports but failed to locate the aircraft. The telegram from Nigeria also stated that the diplomats didn’t think it was likely that the 727 successfully landed at a major airport in Africa.
Some of the theories that have been suggested for the 727’s disappearance are just that, ideas with really no proof or facts backing them up.
In July 2003, a possible sighting was reported in Guinea; however, the United States Department of States has since conclusively dismissed this. Reports of this sighting suggest that a pilot of another commercial aircraft company while preparing to take off, saw the 727 sitting on the tarmac. The pilot stated that he saw the plane with faded American Airline colors, and the aircraft number N844AA which had been attempted to be painted over, but you could still read the numbers.
Back in 2004, Padilla’s sister Benita Kirkland told a local newspaper that the family believed that her brother was flying the plane, expressing their fear that he must have crashed somewhere in Africa or was being held against his will. Other ideas they have come up with are a massive insurance fraud by any of the characters in this story. Benita Kirkland went on and said that she swears that her brother wasn’t in on any illegal plan, simply because he loved his family too much to cut off all contact for life and no amount of money would be worth that.
Now, let’s bring this story in for a landing for this 92,500 lbs. Boeing 727, we don’t have a lot of clear answers. It does appear that this mystery is more of a theft rather than anything else. If you want to make a plane disappear fast, Africa is a good place for this to happen. Simply dismantling and selling off the scrap and engines could bring a fortune to any person in Africa, and then you would have an untrackable 727. Sadly, the lives of Ben Padilla and John Mikel Mutantu probably didn’t turn out well, but this story isn’t that shocking for this region of the world.
So, what happened to this 727? Most likely, it’s gone forever, but you never know, sometime in the future, you might have a strange aircraft ask for clearance to land at Johannesburg, South Africa, and two men walk off the plane thinking its May of 2003 and them asking, “what’s all the excitement about?”
Well until next time, stay cool and have yourself a great week out there in Acorn Land.