On May 25, 2003, a Boeing 727 sat on a runway at the airport in the capital city of the African nation of Angola. According to some reports it had been sitting there for the better part of a year. The reason as was reported by many mainstream news sources was because local Angolan officials were charging it's owners some $4 million in fines because it apparently was not licensed properly. Regardless, it had been dormant on that runway for quite sometime. That is until on May 25, 2003, it began to taxi, take off and disappear.
But there is much more to the story than just that. Much of it is confusing and strange.
In connection with this vanished Boeing 727-200 series aircraft, the FBI is seeking information regarding one Benjamin Charles Padilla. Padilla is not charged in any crime, they just want to know where he is and what he was up to during the days before the plane disappeared and, obviously, where he's been since. Why do they want to know this? He disappeared the same day as the Boeing and according to Padilla's brother, who lives in Florida, Padilla was sent there by his boss, Maury Joseph (also the owner of the missing 727) to gut the plane and to install huge fuel tanks so the plane could be used as a tanker. Assumably, the tanker could deliver fuel to remote airstrips.
Padilla was an engineer, a pilot (of smaller aircraft - he was not certified to fly a 727) and according to his brother, was definitely working on that plane in the days and weeks leading to it's disappearance.
So what happened?In the weeks and months following the disappearance of the 727 and of Padilla, the mainstream media reported on the story citing the obvious dangers of a plane in terrorists hands. It was reported that MI-6 (A branch of British Intelligence), Mossad (Israeli Intelligence) and the CIA were desperately scouring the planet for this plane. The FBI even put up a
web site asking for information regarding Padilla.
After months had gone by, the media stopped reporting and we are left to assume that the aircraft was never found.
However, in early July, 2003, Australia's Sydney Morning Herald reported that a Canadian pilot named Bob Strother had spotted the missing 727 in Conakry, Guinea. He said that through a fresh but thin coating of paint, he could make out the missing 727's tail number (N844AA). He reported his observation but the plane in question took off and was again lost. One thing to note here is that Padilla's brother spoke with a Jack Markey at the US State Department who claimed that the plane Strother had spotted was tracked down and was confirmed to
not be the missing 727.
Another interesting thing to note is that the plane's owner, Maury Joseph was convicted of fraud in 1997 and banned from ever running a publicly traded company again. Coincidentally, his company has
another 727 for sale.
Now, this has all of the earmarks of something we'd all look back on after a horrible disaster occurred and say something like "Well, hindsight is 20/20!"
But here we are in the middle of it and no one cares. There's a 727 that's been outfitted to carry as much diesel fuel as it carried people before it was bought from American Airlines. That 727 is out there some place. It didn't crash, it didn't land at any major airports - it just vanished. And it could be used to kill people.
On top of that, there's a man missing. A guy who has a family and people who care about him. We need to figure this out fast. Padilla's life could be hanging in the balance and so could the lives of thousands more. If you have a web site, please post this story on it. Or link to this story or any of the other stories linked to in this article. Tell anyone and everyone you can about this because the worst can happen.
Here are some pictures of Padilla:
{{popup padilla.jpg padilla 150x200}} | {{popup Charles.jpg Charles 1510x1210}} |
{{popup Charles1.jpg Charles1 1518x1220}} |
Click to make them biggerIf you have seen him or the 727 with the tail number N844AA, please contact the FBI, the State Department, but most of all, contact Padilla's brother Joseph. You can reach him by phone at (850) 944-9688 or by contacting him
here. By using the form at that link you'll be sending me a direct e-mail that I will then forward immediately to Mr. Padilla.
Please, we really need to get this story in front of more people. We may be waiting for people to die.
Read CBS News' coverage of the vanishing 727 from back in June.Read the Washington Post's coverage of this story from June.Read the America Free Press story that goes into detail regarding how the 727 could be used by terrorists.Check out Australia's Sunday Morning Herald coverage of the apparent reappearance of the missing 727 in Guinea.Read more about the Boeing 727 at the Boeing web site.Read the original newsblog entry posted back in June, here at ThePete.Com.