Kidnap fears for missing Spanish helicopter crew

On Thursday of last week a Spanish air force Super Puma search and rescue helicopter ditched in the Atlantic, 280 nautical miles from its base in the Canary Islands. The aircraft had just made a refueling and technical stop in Mauritania.

That's where it gets strange. The helicopter emergency beacon sounded around 4pm. At approximately 7:30 a search and rescue helicopter from Morocco found the helicopter floating intact with an empty life raft floating next to it.

The crew was initially reported as having been rescued, but that was later rescinded. Defense officials in Spain say they're almost certain that the crew did not die in the crash, and the possibility they were kidnapped is one possibility being looked at.

www.telegraph.co.uk...

a reply to: Zaphod58

It doesn't sound like any fishing vessels would have picked them up, since they would have surfaced by now. Perhaps it was pirates.. I wonder if there is any hope of getting them back if they were kidnapped by pirates?

a reply to: FamCore

Probably, if it is indeed pirates. They're all about getting money for people. The ones that operate out of Africa, anyway. The ones in Pacific waters tend to just take your stuff and kill you.

Curious that they haven't received any demands yet, though.

Curious story. I find these two statements a bit odd because they contradict themselves:

Three and a half hours later the crew of a Moroccan search and rescue helicopter reported that they had located the stricken craft floating on the surface with its life raft next to it.

As well as continuing to look for the wreckage, Spanish and Moroccan forces are stopping and checking vessels in the area, and undertaking searches in Western Saharan ports.

So was the wreckage floating next to the raft or are they still searching for it? Maybe they are just searching for every last piece of it?

Anywho...mysterious case this one. I would think, if kidnapping, it would very coincidental for pirates to have been there at just the right time. Is it possible they were shot out of the air and that is being covered up? And how could they mistakenly be reported as being rescued? Wouldn't it be obvious if they weren't there?

Whole thing is fishy to me.

a reply to: Vasa Croe

It would have eventually sunk after moving away from the area it was found. They would have had to send a ship to recover it and by the time it arrived, currents would have moved it as it sank.