US Officials Investigate 727 In Benin Crash

The State Department says it's investigating the aircraft involved in a deadly Christmas Day crash off the coast of Benin in West Africa, suggesting the same 727 was stolen from an airport in Angola last year.

The US had been looking frantically for the 727, worried that it had been stolen by terrorists intent on using it to attack targets in America. The US even used satellites to image remote airfields, hoping to catch a glimpse of the wayward airplane.

But it took a Canadian pilot flying for a humanitarian agency to spot the aircraft. Bob Strothers said he saw the same airplane on the ramp in Conarky, Guinea, back in June.

"We saw it on the ramp," Strothers said by telephone. "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."

If so, that aircraft was re-registered by the Lebanese-owned Union des Transports Africains. Christmas Day, a UTA 727 crashed into the ocean just off the coast of Benin after clipping a building. Of the 161 people on board that flight, at least 130 were killed.

Still, Lebanese aviation officials and others in the region say the 727 that crashed in the waters off Benin was much older than the one reported missing from Luanda, Angola on May 25th.

While UTA's owner and the Libyan pilot flying the doomed Benin flight haven't been seen since leaving the hospital shortly after the crash, air transport officials in Guinea said they were aware of Strothers' claim. "He was mistaken," senior aviation deputy Dominique Mara said. "This wasn't the plane from Luanda. The Transport Ministry has denied this claim."

Which, as tragic as the situation in Benin was, leaves an ominous question still open: If that wasn't the stolen aircraft from Luanda, where is it?

FMI: www.state.gov