- An American pilot who sparked a global terrorist alert
when he disappeared in Africa with a fully-fuelled jetliner has probably
been murdered, his brother said yesterday.
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- In an exclusive interview with Scotland on Sunday, Joe
Padilla spoke for the first time of his belief that his brother Ben was
hijacked at the controls of the Boeing 727 at Luanda airport in Angola
and killed after the plane took off without permission, vanishing without
trace.
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- Neither Ben Padilla, who comes from Miami, nor the plane
have been seen since their disappearance on the evening of May 25, despite
an extensive search across the continent by several African nations, the
US State Department and the CIA.
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- "I hate to say it, but my brother is probably deceased,"
said Joe Padilla from his home in Pensacola, Florida.
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- "He would have been in touch with his family had
he been able to. We desperately want to see him home again, but we are
steeling ourselves for the worst."
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- Padilla's mystery disappearance prompted fears that terrorists
had taken the plane for a September 11-style suicide attack somewhere in
Africa, particularly because the aircraft, a former American Airlines passenger
jet, had been converted into a fuel carrier and had just been filled with
14,000 gallons.
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- At first the family discounted terrorism, preferring
to believe a theory that the plane might have crashed through mechanical
failure because it had spent 14 months on the Tarmac in Luanda and had
not been properly maintained.
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- But Padilla says he has new information from the planeís
owner, the president of an aircraft-leasing firm in Miami, which points
instead to a hijacking. Ben, a 51-year-old freelance pilot who has flown
cargo planes around the world for more than 20 years, was hired to organise
the repossession of the plane from a company that failed to maintain lease
payments.
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- "Ben spent two-and-a-half months in Angola overseeing
a full reworking of the plane so it was in tip-top condition," Padilla
said. "On the day it disappeared, Ben was only taking the plane out
to the end of the runway and back just to see how things were working.
He wasn't licensed to fly a plane as big as that and the two pilots he
was hiring weren't even on board, so that tells me right there it's been
hijacked.
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- "The plane took off without permission and failed
to respond to the control tower, but we don't know what happened after
that. We hope he was just captured, but I have to doubt he's still alive.
I hope I'm wrong, but whoever took that plane probably killed him."
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- Padilla also rejects a theory that Ben was part of a
plot to steal the plane. "Two days before he disappeared, he paid
$43,000 of the owner's money to the airport authorities to clear the bill
for the plane having been there so long. If my brother had stolen the plane,
he'd have taken the money also."
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- American authorities believe the aircraft was more likely
to have been taken for criminal purposes such as smuggling drugs or weapons
rather than any terrorist activity, although the FBI will not reveal any
details of their investigation.
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- Whatever the truth of Benís disappearance, however,
his family have been deeply affected. "We were all very close, and
he used to call me wherever he was," said Padilla, who said his sister
Benita and her baby son Johnathan were also missing him.
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- "We got an e-mail to him a couple of months ago
telling him our mother had had a heart attack and he promised to call as
soon as he was able, but since then we've heard nothing.
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- "But we've got to keep searching, even if he's dead.
If he is, we want his body home."
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- http://www.news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=735302003
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