N844AA Halloween Aviation Mystery
0 commentsA few readers complained that my last aviation mystery was not a mystery at all. So, in celebration of Halloween, I present a real aviation mystery.
In May of 2003, a Boeing 727 took flight under mysterious circumstances from Luanda airport in the southwest African country of Angola. I say mysterious circumstances because the aircraft had been sitting idle in Angola for over a year; it owed more than $4 million in backdated airport fees. A lone white male boarded the aircraft, made some shaky turns around the taxiway, and then soared off into the African clouds.
How, exactly, do you steal a 153-foot, 200,000-pound aircraft?
The CIA and the United States State Department became involved with the case when it was uncovered that the 727 had taken on about 14,000 gallons of fuel prior to its unauthorized departure. The interior of the plane had been stripped to convert it into a fuel tanker - ten 500 gallon aluminum tanks were bolted to the floor where American Airlines passengers formerly sat.
Satellite imagery was used to observe nearly every possible airport within range of Angola - but nothing was found.
As with any large piece of equity, there were several individuals attempting to take control of ownership. One man, Miami aircraft broker Mike Gabriel, even flew to Africa to make a claim on the aircraft days before it disappeared. It should be noted that Gabriel was convicted of importing 5,000 pounds of marijuana in the 1980's.
To this day, the Angolan Boeing 727 - which you can research as N844AA - has never been found. Current theories assume it was either crashed in the African jungles for insurance purposes, relocated to an anonymous chop-shop to avoid repossession, or turned over to African guerilla armies to assist with their gem smuggling.
Continue reading... FBI's WANTED page for suspected pilot Ben Charles Padilla or The best summary of the Vanishing 727 incident.
Monday personal notes, Halloween special
This weekend, I...
- Went to a great Halloween party and met lots of smart, friendly 20-something Atlantans. Thanks, Dee! I dressed up as a guru, which was a much bigger hit than I would have anticipated. I am out of costume in the above picture; full costume was me being wrapped up in a few brightly colored Indian shawls that I brought back from Bombay.
- Had Saturday brunch in Atlanta's Cabbagetown, probably the coolest locals-only Atlanta artist neighborhoods that I have been to.
- Hiked and climbed up Sawnee Mountain late Saturday afternoon. Climbed a new face and really got a great workout at the top. I have been making it up there about four or five times per week in an effort to really wear the outdoor experience out before the weather turns unbearably non-hikable cold.
- Noah asked me, "I see all of your away messages during work hours that say Hiking. Do you ever work?" The answer to that question is that I work seven to ten hours each day, like 8am until 7pm, but I take two to three hour lunch breaks where I can go on a quick hike to get some sprint cardio and a little rock climbing into my day.
- Ordered chicken vindaloo and butter chicken take-out from Minerva's Indian Restaurant with Blake on Saturday night, before renting the great Kashmir-based Bollywood flick Lakshya.
- Woke up Sunday morning to watch Amadeus on DVD.
- Hiked back up Sawnee Mountain on Sunday afternoon with my parents.
Trying to put some rhythm into this life.
Real-life Aviation Murder Mystery
Three years ago (July 2002), Russian Bashkirian Airlines flight 2937 collided with a DHL cargo aircraft over southern Germany, killing 71 people.
Both aircraft were flying under supervision of Swiss air traffic control. Peter Nielsen, the only air traffic controller on duty at the time, gave the Bashkirian Airlines flight warning that it was dangerously approaching the DHL cargo craft. With a mere 44 seconds to spare, and following Nielsens's directions, the Russian aircraft descended directly into the path of the freighter. At around 11:43pm local time, the two airplanes collided in mid-air, and 71 persons perished.
Mr. Nielsen had wrongly instructed the Bashkirian Airlines plane to descend, even though its onboard warning equipment told it to climb. His colleague had taken an unauthorized break, leaving Mr. Nielsen with a heavy workload and two air traffic control stations to monitor. But whether or not this collision was a result of faulty air traffic control is not the purpose of this post.
Here is where it gets interesting: Vitaly Kaloyev, a Russian architect whose family was onboard the doomed Bashkirian Airlines flight 2937, took matters into his own hands and murdered the Swiss air traffic controller on duty at the time of the accident.
Vitali Kaloyev with his daughter Diana, who was killed in the crash. Kaloyev participated in the wreckage search for the bodies and located his own daughter's corpse.
According to investigators, on February 21 Vitali Kaloyev arrived in Zurich and checked in to the Welcome-Inn in the suburb of Kloten. The hotel is not far from where Peter Nielsen, the 36-year-old Danish air traffic controller widely blamed for the 2002 crash, lived with his wife and three children.
On the afternoon of February 24, he set off for Mr Nielsen's house. A neighbour spotted Mr Kaloyev and asked what he wanted. He waved a piece of paper with Mr Nielsen's name on it. The neighbour pointed to Mr Nielsen's front door, but instead of knocking, Mr Kaloyev sat down in the garden.
Mr Nielsen, who had lived in Switzerland since 1995, spotted the intruder, went outside and asked what he wanted. Swiss detectives say his children went into the garden as well; his wife called them back, and was still inside when she heard a "kind of scream". She rushed out to discover her husband in a pool of blood.
Yesterday Mr. Kaloyev, the Russian architect, was sentenced to eight years in a Swiss prison for the premeditated homicide of Peter Nielsen, the Swiss air traffic controller.
Blake goes to New Delhi
One of my best friends from high school works for a $300 million Nasdaq-listed software company. They recently bought a Delhi-based instant messaging team.
So now Blake, my friend from high school, is going to Delhi, India for two weeks to help integrate the new team of 15 software engineers with their other 400 recently appointed American, Australian and Romanian coworkers.
Blake will be setting up domain controllers, Exchange servers, DNS, DHCP, WINS and IP telephony services at the new office in Shashtri Park (Delhi's new IT complex).
We're watching the movie Gandhi this weekend (at Zach's suggestion - it was great!), and we are eating as much spicy Indian vegetables as our stomaches can tolerate. It is preparation for his two weeks abroad in a foreign land - and for my own Saturday indulgence in a culture that I visited almost a year ago.
Update Later that night, Blake and I went to the Diwali Mela & Garbha Night at the Global Mall in Norcross, Georgia. We ate even more Indian food and experienced a few terribly awkward situations as the only caucasian attendees to the otherwise crowded event. I am confident that our Saturday of Indian culture immersion was enough to last the both of us for a long time. (Last year, I was in Mumbai for the first days of Diwali fireworks.)
Personal Notes from Wednesday Morning
First, a belated THANK YOU to my California friend Noah Kagan. He went all the way to Thailand to get me another shirt from Raja's World-Famous Tailor. If you're thinking about going to Thailand, check out Noah's personal website and drop him a line.
I spent this last weekend in New York City with some friends. While I was there, I did lots of fun things.
- Saw the movie The Squid and the Whale, which was totally vulgar and yet smart funny.
- Visited McSorley's with Jakob, Kunal and Andrew. McSorley's is an old famous Irish bar, and you get two beers when you order one.
- Stood in Brooklyn's Prospect Park for at least an hour as Casey and Zach whizzed around me, scoring lots of frisbee points.
- Realized on multiple occasions that size is not equal to quality. Examples: LCD screens, Nobu sushi with Josh.
- Walked the length of the underground Lincoln Tunnel on Saturday morning, connecting Manhattan to New Jersey. This was an idea that looked good on paper, but... sorry, Amit.
- Accidentally walked in on a big financing meeting that the MoSoSo guys were having. The funny thing is that they knew I was coming.
Zach Klein was my lovable host for the weekend. He said, "For someone who travels so much, I can't believe you're so bad at it." And it's true! I missed my flight on the way back, but it was only $25 to change the ticket on Delta. I highly suggest flying on Delta - the experience was painless. I do not suggest taking the AirTrain from JFK airport after 10:00pm - it took me about one hour just to get to Jamaica Station.
Alright, back to work. Our company's big trade show and convention - the National Business Aviation Association's Annual Meeting - is being held in Orlando on November 9 - 11 this year. I'll be writing press releases, preparing PowerPoint presentations, making Press Kits, trade show posters, booth layouts and new business cards during the next two weeks.
Drowning in a sea of take-out napkins
I eat a lot of take-out food. With each order I amass a small stack of napkins. Restaurants love to give away napkins- they are inexpensive marketing tools, right?
Today I counted: I threw away fourteen napkins from three different restaurants. Food for thought.
Thursday personal notes
- I'm going to visit Zach tonight in Manhattan. Return Monday evening.
- I have enough friends in 349 Broadway (Jakob, Ricky, Josh and Zach) that it is already tough to spend the weekend with some new friends and possibly miss some other friends (Casey, Pete, Chris, Billie, Katey, etc) while missing two days of work. Apologies in advance! I'm going to try to work this weekend so that I can come up again soon.
- That's why we keep blogs.
- Steve Jobs really is the master of PowerPoint presentations (natch, Lessig).
- I am attempting to manage our company's press conference at NBAA this year, and we are using Jobs style as our template. He demos so amazingly well that it is like God. And those new G5s look great!
- I uploaded a bunch of mushroom pictures to my Flickr account.
- One of the oldest tricks in the Just a few more minutes of sleep book is to say, "Let's just lie down and plan out my day for a few casual minutes." Nice try, lazy head! Sad to say that I fell for it this morning.
Need your help for LCD pricing
I could use some help tracking down specific pricing for 5", 7" and 10" LCD glass in large quantities. If you have access to this pricing information (beyond a DigiKey or Mouser catalogue), please send me an e-mail.
or Taiwan and Korea