The Trail Went Cold - Episode 228 - Ben Charles Padilla & John Mikel Mutantu

The Trail Went Cold

Robin Warder

True Crime, Tv & Film

4.5 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2021

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

May 25, 2003. Luanda, Angola. 50-year old Ben Charles Padilla, an American citizen overseeing a rebuilding project on a Boeing 727 at Quatro de Fevereiro International Airport, is reportedly seen boarding the plane alongside a Congolese mechanic named John Mikel Mutantu. Shortly thereafter, the aircraft takes off without clearance before it vanishes without a trac and an extensive search effort fails to find it. Since neither Padilla or Mutantu seemed to have the necessary training required to fly a 727 on their own, there is speculation that they may have been hijacked or another person was behind the controls when it took off. But if so, what actually happened to the two men and the missing aircraft? On this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we explore a truly bizarre aviation mystery that has left everyone puzzled for the past two decades. If you have any information about this case, please contact the FBI at (202) 324-3000. Additional Reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Angola_727_disappearance https://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/the-727-that-vanished-2371187/ https://charleyproject.org/case/ben-charles-padilla-jr http://www.iasa.com.au/folders/Security_Issues/missingpadilla.html https://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=96757&page=1 https://www.themorningbulletin.com.au/news/mystery-of-the-missing-727-plane/3471561/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2003/08/23/case-of-missing-jetliner-unsolved/26a09cae-fae8-4811-8a52-65555fd5c8b6/ https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-2003-06-21-0306200610-story.html https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna3861595 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3003058.stm http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2003/05/29/867049.htm http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/08/14/1060588523649.html http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0306/24/ltm.15.html http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-01-03-angola-benin-mystery_x.htm http://www.iasa-intl.com/folders/belfast/220903/padilla.html https://web.archive.org/web/20060310060514/https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/seekinfo/padilla.htm “The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon! Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content. “The Trail Went Cold” is going to be appearing on podcast row at “Crimecon UK” at the Leonardo Royal Hotel & Spa in London on September 25-26, 2021. To get a 10 % discount on the purchase of tickets to either event, please use our specialized promo code, “COLD21”, by visiting https://www.crimecon.co.uk. “The Trail Went Cold” is now doing a weekly livestream show on GetVokl every Thursday from 7:00-8:00 PM ET as part of their “True Crime Thursday” line-up. For more information, please visit their website. The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote. All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

Transcript

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0:00.0	May 25th, 2003 Luanda Angola.
0:05.0	50 year old Ben Charles Padilla, an American citizen overseeing a rebuilding project on a Boeing
0:10.8	727 at Quadro de Fiverero International Airport is reportedly seen boarding the plane alongside a Congolese mechanic named John Mikhail mutantu.
0:21.0	Shortly thereafter, the aircraft takes off without clearance and disappears.
0:25.0	Since neither Padilla or Mutantu seemed to have the necessary training required to fly a 727,
0:31.0	there is speculation they may have been hijacked or that another person was behind the controls,
0:36.3	but no trace of the two men or the missing aircraft is ever found.
0:40.3	After that, the trail went cold. Oh, uh, well, uh, and uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, it's all. Oh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, Hello everyone and welcome to our latest episode of The Trail went cold.
1:22.0	I'm your host Robin Warder and today we're going to be
1:24.8	exploring a truly unique mystery involving a missing plane and two men. The
1:29.6	2003 disappearance of Ben Charles Padilla and John Michael Mutantu.
1:35.0	I once featured this story in an article I co-wrote at crack.com several years ago, and it's
1:40.0	most definitely the first time our podcast has ever covered an unsolved cold case from the African
1:45.4	country of Angola. But the story wound up receiving quite a bit of attention from the media because
1:51.0	Ben Charles Padilla was an American citizen and given that this was less than
1:55.2	two years removed from 9-11, there was genuine fear that the missing aircraft might be used for some
2:01.0	sort of terrorist attack.
2:03.0	The reason Padilla became involved in this whole thing
2:06.0	was because he was offered a contract job
2:08.0	to oversee the rebuilding of a Boeing 727 at an airport
2:12.0	in the Angolan capital of Luanda. But one day before the plane was scheduled
2:16.6	to be flown elsewhere, it suddenly took off from the airport without permission, and Padilla
	...

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