The Creepy Disappearance Of The 727
Despite living in a technically advanced world where streets, jungles, and mountains can be explored live thousands of miles away from the safety of our rooms, we have been cut down to size by well-meaning incidents that rubbish our knowledge and soil our technology in a peculiar ‘’dead-beat’’ fashion that leaves bewildered civilization in their wake. We’ve all heard epic and blood-curdling tales of banks and diamonds heists. Chances are, you’ve probably never heard of the three-man team colluding to steal 92,500 lbs (41,900 Kg) Boeing 727 plane. To start off with, such a gigantic flying contraption requires a fairly long runway. Owing to the staggering size, ear-splitting roar to top up with the powerful engines, you’ll most likely draw the attention of the town when landing a stolen Boeing in your backyard if finding a skilled pilot won’t be a problem and making a runway won’t be a hitch.
However, humanity comes equipped with crafty devils who’ll take on fate, hop into a plane, and escape both civilian and army radar alike before vanishing into the horizon with the spoils, never to be seen or heard from again. That was exactly what happened to a Boeing 727 on the evening hours of May 25, 2003. The grounded plane, though airworthy, had had its fair of trouble.
After being retired from active service by American Airlines, the plane changed hands severally until it landed on the desk of a Miami-based Aerospace Sales and Leasing Co who wasted no time in pulling out the passenger seats and converting her into a tanker before being flown to Angola. For some unknown reasons, the deal fell through and remained grounded in Quatro de Fevereiro International Airport with steadily accumulating parking fees. With the debts pilling and the plane slowly falling into disrepair, Ben Charles Padilla, an American engineer was dispatched to return her into the flight-ready status and things went bananas.
After a series of testing, the plane took to the runway without clearance, and after executing a series of erratically dangerous maneuvers with both lights and transponder switched off; the plane took into the air and vanished. In the course of investigations, it was thought Padilla was at the controls as the remaining two were literally inexperienced in flying such a plane. To add to the otherwise puzzling puzzle, news surfaced of the unidentified plane in unpaved Congo airstrips but nothing came of it. To date, its fate is unknown.
