Date & Time:
May 21, 2010 at 0020 LT
Type of aircraft:
Beechcraft 200 Super King Air
Operator:
Registration:
D2-FFT
Flight Phase:
Flight
Flight Type:
Charter/Taxi (Non Scheduled Revenue Flight)
Survivors:
No
Site:
Plain, Valley
Schedule:
Pointe Noire - Luanda
MSN:
BB-607
YOM:
1980
Country:
Angola
Region:
Africa
Crew on board:
2
Crew fatalities:
2
Pax on board:
1
Pax fatalities:
1
Other fatalities:
0
Total fatalities:
3
Circumstances:
The crew was performing a charter flight from Pointe Noire to Luanda with one passenger on board, the Mauritanian businessman Rashid Mustapha who was candidate to the Presidential elections in Mauritania in 2007. The pax called his bodyguard just before takeoff, asking them to be ready upon arrival at Luanda-4 de Fevereiro Airport. The twin engine aircraft departed Pointe Noire Airport at 2321LT for a 75-90 minutes flight to Luanda. Just before it started the descent, while cruising over the area of Caxito, some 50 km northeast of Luanda, the aircraft disappeared from radar screens at 0020LT. SAR operations were abandoned after few days as no trace of the aircraft nor the three occupants was found. It is possible that the aircraft crashed by night in the ocean off the Angolan coast but this was not confirmed as the wreckage was never found. Three years later, in March 2013, unconfirmed reports and rumors in Africa said that the aircraft never crashed anywhere and that Rashid Mustapha was in fact hostage by a terrorist group somewhere in Africa, but this was not confirmed by Officials in Mauritania or Angola. Without any trace of the aircraft, all hypothesis remains open.
