In Angola, A Jetliner's Vanishing Act

WP ^ | Wednesday, June 18, 2003 | By John Mintz

[RoughDobermann]

The Boeing 727 had not budged from its parking place at the airport in Angola's capital city for 14 months, so when the jetliner started taxiing down the runway, the men in the control tower radioed the pilot for an explanation. There was no reply from the cockpit, even after the plane rumbled to a takeoff into the African skies.

The plane has been missing since it took off from the Luanda airport around dinnertime on May 25, setting off a continent-wide search for its whereabouts that includes the CIA, the State Department and a number of African nations. Their fear is that terrorists could stage a replay of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, using the plane in a suicide attack somewhere in Africa.

[wtc911]

What's he gonna do, hedge-hop all the way?

[RoughDobermann]

An "ON/OFF SWITCH"?

Yes, they can be turned off in many ways; circuit breaker, for example.

[Arkie2]

Interesting how you honed in on the most alarmist post on that board and by a poster who offers absolutely no proof of that statement. Got your tin foil hat on?

[Arkie2]

Come on. We're talking about Africa here. Normal rules don't apply.

[_Jim]

I think this sume it up -

From: post 87

Poster: international hog driver

posted 1st June 2003 07:42

I think you guys are getting paranoid, up there in the real world and obviously some of you have never worked in the third world.

If and I stress the word “IF” this was a terrorist type thing then I can think of a lot more countries with a lot more aircraft scattered around them that are closer to Europe and North America.

Check out the African forum and read into what has been said and “may” get an understanding about what happened.

The reality of what goes on is these places will astound some of you in the oversensitive, tree hugging nandy pandy, nimby, ‘free’ world.

Airside security does not exist to those that are determined, think of the shoe shine kids and hangar rats everywhere in Africa, the families that were living in the grass beside the runway in manila, and the millions of places out there that jets go to where the runway is simply a wide pedestrian crossing built through the middle of town.

You don’t need to ask what goes on, you don’t publicise that stuff in public forum people like to sit back in there chairs and say ooohh, isn’t that bad, doesn’t the world need to fix that. Gimme a break, in southwest Africa alone billions of dollars go missing every year from government coffers, more than enough than enough to run the whole WFP program for ever.

The day that the WFP are making food drops by Herc and 727 in France is that day that people will understand the third world having never been there.

Ok rant over, wake up and smell the coffee, it has nothing to do with osama bin hiding.

[ewing]

After hearing about the fuel tanks, my tin foil is locked on. although the local media thinks they are still in West Africa and havent gotten any new fuel.

[_Jim]

And I think this is why - post 94

Poster: fesmokie

posted 29th May 2003 14:19

N844AA

If I'm not mistaken, that is the aircraft that we ferried from MIA to Luanda for a THIEF known as Keith Irwin out of Jo- Burg. It was an Ex AA pax B-727.

That aircraft is a full blown fuel hauler and if in the wrong hands could be a serious threat however, I would guess at this point it was just the repo man claiming his property.

Keith Irwin brought a crew of six over from the states to operate this aircraft and after two months on the project, the crew left without collecting a single pay check. He also owed several other people lots of money and may have got in trouble for buying a HOT HF radio, stolen from the Angolan military and they may have had something to do with seizing the aircraft originally. Who knows.

[_Jim]

From: post 94

Poster: fesmokie

posted 1st June 2003 13:01

To: Int Hog Driver

Oh yea it had tanks.

Ten Aluminum 500 gallon tanks each plummed together by a four inch manifold with shutoff valves on each one and a very unique vent system. At least they were installed in the aircraft when I left that god for saken place last year.

5,000 gallons is all ...

[Arkie2]

This stuff happens all the time. Read the post from the web page I linked earlier below.

It happens even in the UK. 5 to 10 years ago a 707 went walkies at Coventry Airport! An aircraft operated by a well known individual who lost a few bags of Coke at Southend recently, got repoed. The crew asked for FULL POWER ENGINE RUNS & were cleared to the runway to carry them out. They opened the taps & disappeared, finally arriving at Manston!

[gridlock]

So a total of 15,500 gallons fuel gives a range of 4000 miles, give or take. Won't get them to NYC, but it would get them to London.

Not saying that this is the case, mind you. Just a technical problem, really.

[The Magical Mischief Tour]

I’ve been in professional aviation for over 17 years now and this is not the first time this has happened. During the 1980’s a South American Boeing 707 was repossessed while at the gate in Miami.

During the 80’s there wasn’t a week go by that somewhere in the south a big piston twin, King Air or light jet was not stolen. These planes were flown to Central and South America used to run drugs then abandoned on some field somewhere.

Africa is no different and the lack of traditional radar coverage makes it very easy for leasing companies to take property back. Also Africa has a high number of plane vandalisms and thefts anyways just recently a London based charter operator had two Falcon 900’s broken into.

Angola is a hellhole anyways I’ve flown to Luanda many times and each time we dump our passengers and then continue on south to Windhoek Namibia for the plane and crews safety.

But having said all that it would be a walk in the park of a would be terrorist to fly this bird away in the middle of the night and make some place like Chad or Sudan from Angola literally undetected by radar because less than 10% of the African continent has radar coverage.

Fortunately the Jurassic Jet is growing less and less common in Europe and in the USA so an old clunker such as this bird would draw attention if it showed up at an unusual airfield at an odd time.

[Arkie2]

Consider yourself lucky. I've been in Luanda recently and Lagos soon.

[Calvin Locke]

The volume of the passenger compartment is certainly big enough to handle 15,000 gallons in tanks.

That's where all those missing liters of anthrax are supposed to go...

[gridlock]

From Michael Costello's Blog

Jetliner Missing?

Intelligence services have been seeking stolen Boeing 727 for about 3 weeks now. The plane would make a particularly lethal weapon as is was fitted as a tanker, rather than a passenger plane. It could carry a lot of fuel or explosives and would make an efficient missile if a suicide terrorist were at the controls.

A number of explanations have been offered for the plane's disappearance, including that the heist was actually a repossession.

I have my own, based upon Democratic Party reasoning. The plane never really existed in the first place.

-------------------

Seems reasonable to me. I mean, it's been three whole weeks and Africa is not that big. Clearly the WMD 727 was just a figment of the CIA's imagination.

[Jim Noble]

If you were going to use this aircraft to attack an East or West Coast city, and assuming you could run the tanks dry because you had full tanks in the back instead of pax, how far away could you stage from?

I assume (hopefully) you could not go from Canada or Mexico because you would get caught.

Assuming the BGs have this aircraft, could they spoof a real (approved) arriving flight until it was too late to stop them?

Could they make it all the way from Algeria?

[The Magical Mischief Tour]

Just a guess but a 727 set up like this would have a range or over 4,000 NM. There are corporate conversions available on the market for 727 which fit several PATS tanks in the cargo hold and can increase the range out to 4500 NM.

But if I were to guess I’d say the most likely scenario would be to stage from the closest point possible to maximize your fuel on board, assuming a 9/11-style attack.

You could easily fly this jet from Africa to the northern areas in South America or even somewhere in the Caribbean chain. From either one of these points you could make the southern USA with 40 to 50 percent of your fuel load still onboard.

The parts of the Caribbean and South America suffers from the same lack of radar service coverage as the African continent and therefore makes an ideal place to operate from without causing panic. But once you approached the US ADIZ you would be required to have on file and then activate an IFR or DVFR flight plan depending on altitude and weather conditions. Without this you would not be allowed to penetrate the ADIZ anyway even before 9/11 and risk military intercept.

We are still very venerable to another 9/11-style attack from a very smart, determined, well-funded and thorough terrorist. The only hope would be the eagle eyes and ears of an alert controller either seeing, hearing or feeling that something is just not quite right and picking up the phone, calling for help, which he/she would get in 3 to 5 minutes in the form of your friendly neighborhood Air Guard F-16 driver.

But if this jet was to be packed with explosives and the fuel used to simply deliver the flying bomb to it’s intended target then from the points of departure I have listed you could fly literally anywhere in the USA or Canada.

Personally I am 99.999% positive the FAA has informed all ATC Centers about this jet and if anything just popped up out of the blue so-to-speak our Air Force would know about it within minutes and would be more than happy to pay it a visit.

While I don’t have very much faith in “Homeland Security” I do have volumes of faith in the men and women who man the “Bat caves” (ATC centers), they were stung once on 9/11 and felt helpless as the very system they work with and love was turned against them and I have the highest amount of faith in the men and women who fly CAP and Guard Patrols, they too were helpless on that very day as their country was attacked and they were not prepared to defend her.

After reading that article in Time Mag about that F-15 driver who took off on 9/11 unarmed, with nothing but a plane and fuel to defend his country. He told the interviewer that if it came down to it he would have sacrificed his life to bring down any potential jet that was on a collision course with another target.

I assure you they won’t let it happen again.

[Jim Noble]

Personally I am 99.999% positive the FAA has informed all ATC Centers about this jet and if anything just popped up out of the blue so-to-speak our Air Force would know about it within minutes and would be more than happy to pay it a visit.

I agree.

How about a Debt of Honor scenario, though, where the Air Afrique (or whoever) crew are killed on the ground in Algeria, and this aircraft is substituted flying a legal flight plan into Dulles (for example)?

[The Magical Mischief Tour]

As far as spoofing a real flight until it is too late, that is my greatest fear…

An arriving B727 from some place in South America, on an approved IFR flight plan, listed under a current call sign, maybe even a regular cargo operator or contract cargo operation flying into Miami or Atlanta International around 8 AM on a Monday or a Friday morning.

Aircraft is doing everything fine, following ATC instructions to a TEE, cleared for the approach, checks in with tower then cleared to land… plane looks good to the tower controller, is established on approach gear and flaps down, then just about 30 seconds before touchdown the aircraft appears to be going missed approach, the pilot checks in with tower…

ATL tower Jihad 123 on the missed were not configured to land…

ATL would not bat an eye at this call all it means is that the pilot did not like something, maybe he was too fast, Co-pilot was slow with a checklist or he honestly forgot something and wanted to come around again just to be safe.

As the jet powers up, it instead of climbing out on runway heading begins to veer towards the main terminal and car park, 30 seconds later it slams into the terminal and explodes because it was carrying a cargo hold full of explosives and kills half the people in the terminal and on a busy day God only knows how many that would be.

And in all honesty it would look like an accident in the beginning.

That is my worst fear.

I’m not too worried about someone hijacking another jet, the passengers are just to ready to fight for their lives for that to happen again.

[Rebelbase]

You know, that was funny a ABOUT 20 MILLION TIMES AGO!

Sheesh, get original.

[_Jim]

An arriving B727 from ... South America ... approved flight plan, listed under a current call sign, maybe even a regular cargo operator or contract cargo operation ...

Fortunately, a *real* terrorist would still have to:

a) secure an aircraft

b) keep the fact that a flying, serviceable aircraft is missing/suppress calls from the organization that would be *missing* said aircraft

c) secure/sign for fuel for the flight *without* arousing suspician as A LOT of fuel would be just 'missing' and surely shyow up on meters/fuel logs somewhere

d) 'inject' a bona-fide flight plan into the system from a 'trusted' source or channel - and if these are verified by a 'call back' to the originating source or organization I don't know ...

Then there is the aspect of using pre-assigned transponder codes known only to the captain (in an IFF capacity) and valid *only* for that flight (this technique is currenly used - but sparingly to my knowledge here in the US) ...