Questions Surface about Benin Jet Crash

AP ^ | 1/2/04 | NAFI DIOUF and ELLEN KNICKMEYER

[Solson]

By NAFI DIOUF and ELLEN KNICKMEYER, Associated Press Writers

DAKAR, Senegal - American authorities are investigating whether a Boeing 727 shattered in a deadly Christmas Day crash off West Africa was the same jet that vanished in Angola last year, setting off a worldwide search, a U.S. State Department spokesman said Friday.

AP Photo

Also, a Canadian humanitarian-flight pilot told The Associated Press he saw a 727 with the missing Angola jet's tail number at Guinea's airport in June — a month after the jet's disappearance.

The plane's old tail number was not fully covered, and the plane was reregistered in Guinea and flown by Lebanese-owned Union des Transports Africains, pilot Bob Strothers said.

"We saw it on the ramp," Strothers said by telephone from the Guinea capital, Conakry. "A new registration had been painted on the aluminum part, and underneath ... you could see the old registration number, which matches the plane that went missing."

The plane that crashed off Benin on Christmas Day, killing at least 130 of the 161 people aboard, was Guinean-registered and operated by Union des Transports Africains.

Strothers said he believed UTA had at least two Boeing 727s at the time of the crash, making it impossible for him to judge whether the vanished Angola plane and the crashed Benin jet were the same.

Strothers first disclosed his information before the Christmas Day crash, in which the plane, carrying mostly Lebanese, clipped a building at the end of the runway and plunged into the Atlantic Ocean.

The information heightened the mystery surrounding the missing jet, which took off from an airport in Luanda, Angola, on May 25 and disappeared.

The United States has led an international hunt for the Angola 727, using satellite surveillance to check airstrips around the world, fearing that terrorists might have taken the Angola plane for a Sept. 11, 2001-style attack.

American officials also have cited a possible business dispute as a reason for the disappearance of the Angola jet.

Lebanese news media on Friday suggested the two planes were the same.

But aviation officials in Lebanon and others there who are knowledgeable about the country's aviation industry discounted the idea — telling the AP that the plane that crashed off Benin appeared much older than the one that went missing from Angola.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Lou Fintor said, "We're aware of the reports. We're checking into them."

U.S. officials have refused to provide any details concerning the search for the Angola plane, with Fintor saying all efforts were being made to find it.

Union des Transports Africains officials could not be reached for comment Friday.

UTA offices in Guinea and in Lebanon have been deserted since the Christmas Day crash, with police surrounding the Guinea offices.

The Christmas Day crash killed the wife and son of the airline's owner, who survived. He and the plane's Libyan pilot have not been seen publicly since leaving the hospital.

Spokesmen with Interpol in France could not immediately be reached Friday.

Angola aviation officials said they would withhold comment pending more information.

In Guinea, transport officials said they investigated Strothers' report that the planes were the same and found it to be false.

"He was mistaken," senior aviation deputy Dominique Mara said. "This wasn't the plane from Luanda. The Transport Ministry has denied this claim."

Guinea Transport Minister Cellou Dallein Diallo told reporters in Conakry that UTA took out insurance on a Boeing jet on June 27 — a month after the Angola jet disappeared. It was unclear Friday when UTA started flying the 727 registered to it.

Also, the FBI (news - web sites) has put out a worldwide alert for American Ben Charles Padilla, who allegedly was seen boarding the Angola jet with another man just before it disappeared.

According to Padilla's family in Florida, he was hired to repossess the jet after Air Angola failed to make lease payments.

His sister, Benita Padilla-Kirkland, told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel she feared the plane crashed or the 51-year-old Padilla was being held against his will.

The Angola plane bore the tail number N844AA when it disappeared. A Federal Aviation Administration (news - web sites) online database said that tail number is assigned to a Boeing 727 registered to Aerospace Sales & Leasing Co., Inc., in Miami.

It was that number that Strothers said he saw on the jet at the Guinea airport in June.

On Christmas Day, an AP reporter on the scene of the crash noted the number GIH 161 V71 on the tail of the downed plane.

That number was different from both that of the Angola jet and of the jet Strothers said he saw in Guinea in June.

In Lebanon, Lebanese survivors of the Christmas Day crash said the jet that crashed was antiquated and in bad shape — clearly much older than the plane that disappeared in Angola, aviation experts said.

___

Associated Press reporters in Benin; Guinea; Beirut, Lebanon; and Paris contributed to this report.

[Solson]

Weird? Was this part of a terrorist method of attack?

[Support Free Republic]

Here we go again folks... why not donate now and help get this fundraiser over with!

[L`enn]

Posted here. ---->
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1049752/posts


No biggie not searching, I just point it out for you to read through the posts. Posters made some excellent posts explaining how the Air Transportation in Africa operates which make this look far less sinister.

[Solson]

Damn. I did search for plane, plane crash, and Benin and didn't find it. Ah well...

[Lucy Lake]

Glad you posted it today; I missed it earlier.

[ABrit]

From FBI most wanted

On May 25, 2003, at approximately 6 p.m. local time, an airplane took off from DeFevereiro International Airport in Luanda, Angola, with neither clearance nor a flight plan, and has not been seen since. The plane is described as a 200 series advanced 727 jet with a tail number of N844AA, and a serial number of 20985. It is 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.

Law enforcement officials believe that Ben Charles Padilla may have been on board the plane at the time it disappeared. The FBI is interested in locating Padilla, as he may have information as to the whereabouts of the plane.

[ABrit]

Jose Padilla is the focus of great speculation by Americans today. How can the U.S intelligence agencies have known that Padilla was plotting to detonate one of the most sinister types of weapons of mass destruction? Is it because these agencies had received reports, as John Ashcroft claims, that Padilla and his accomplices had been meeting and gathering information on how to build these deadly devices? Or because these agencies have known of him all along, and had chosen to simply wait for his return to the United States?

http://www.glennbeck.com/news/06132002.shtml

[ABrit]

Padilla's whereabouts are unknown from 1994 to 1998. In all likelihood, he was still living somewhere in Florida and could have been involved with some of the Middle Eastern terrorist organizations that have possible ties to the Oklahoma City bombings.

[ABrit]

According to Padilla's family in Florida, he was hired to repossess the jet after Air Angola failed to make lease payments.

His sister, Benita Padilla-Kirkland, told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel she feared the plane crashed or the 51-year-old Padilla was being held against his will.

[arasina]

December 18 The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals said the president does not have the power to detain Padilla as an enemy combatant, and ordered that he be released or transferred to the civilian justice system in 30 days.

On June 9, 2002 Jose Padilla--a.k.a. Abdullah Al Muhajir--was transferred from control of the U.S. Department of Justice to military control. Since that time, Padilla has been held in a navy brig in South Carolina.

[arasina]

Are Ben Charles Padilla and Jose Padilla relatives?

[_Jim]

and could have been involved with some of the Middle Eastern terrorist organizations that have possible ties to the Oklahoma City bombings.

THAT'S pure spectulation and has never been proven by any tangible shred of evidence ...

[ABrit]

I don't know, but there seems to be a lot of Padilla's cropping up.

[ABrit]

Look at the picture....

http://www.glennbeck.com/news/06-13-02/with-hats-wieghtgain.jpg

FBI sketch of John Doe No. 2 (LEFT). This variation of the sketch depicts the suspect wearing a hat. This current photo of Jose Padilla (RIGHT) has been enhanced to show what he might look like if he was wearing a hat.

[_Jim]

Look at the picture....

Yeah yeah yeah -

- give me something like a phone call record from McVeigh to some Middle East type (NONE exist - but MANY exist between the actors they did convict for this crime/the OKC bombing) - or hang it up ...

[ABrit]

Did the FBI ever find John Doe 2?
Seems not.
Not very clever in a major terrorist murder investigation.

[ABrit]

Then there is last month's little-noticed but potentially devastating report in Insight magazine, which revealed that Abdul Hakim Murad, a key member of the Philippines cell, actually confessed to the FBI that al-Qaeda was behind the 1995 bombing just hours after it happened.

Another eerie twist: Aside from the resemblance between Jose Padilla and John Doe No. 2, the maiden name of Terry Nichols' ex-wife Lana just happens to be Padilla.

http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=2002/6/16/142107

[ABrit]

By April 23, the Chicago Tribune printed one of the first news stories about Nichols' longstanding connection to Cebu, a city in the south of the Philippines. In 1990, Nichols married a Filipina he met through a "mail-order bride" service and visited her family the country several times subsequently.

His last trip to the Philippines took place from November 1994 to January 1995, the same period that Yousef and his coconspirators had been working out of Manila.

http://www.whoisjohndoe2.com/

[ABrit]

The 2002 indictment alleged that an alias used by Khalifa was found on one of several bomb-making manuals brought into the U.S. in 1992 by an accomplice of Ramzi Yousef.

Those manuals included detailed instructions about how to build improvised explosives, including recipes for urea nitrate (used in the World Trade Center attack) and ammonium nitrate (used in Oklahoma City), according to trial records.

The manuals included instructions on the use and handling of every major component currently believed to have been part of the Oklahoma City bomb, including ammonium nitrate, nitromethane, PETN, blasting caps and instructions on creating shaped charges for use in destroying buildings.

The manuals also contained entries on using hydrogen peroxide and aluminum powder. Ammonium nitrate, hydrogen peroxide, aluminum powder, diesel fuel and blasting caps were found at the Michigan farm of James Nichols, brother of Terry, during an FBI search around April 21, according to a criminal complaint filed in April 1995 but subsequently dropped.

http://www.whoisjohndoe2.com/