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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | April 2008 
Authorities Notify Airports Nationwide
 Sandra Dibble - San Diego Union-Tribune
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| | A day after gunmen stole his Cessna airplane during a terrifying ordeal on a private airstrip in a small Mexican town, Patrick Moroney has a simple message for family and friends in Boise: "We are OK." | | |
Investigators in Baja California Sur said yesterday that they have sent an advisory to airports and landing strips across Mexico as they look into the seizure at gunpoint of a small plane from a U.S. tourist preparing to take off from the community of Mulege.
The theft occurred about 8 a.m. Monday at an airstrip outside the Serenidad Hotel, long popular with U.S. pilots. The owner of the six-seat Cessna Stationair is a 55-year-old businessman from Boise, Idaho, who told friends he was preparing to take off when a car pulled up in front of his plane.
According to the Baja California Sur government alert, there were six assailants, one of them armed. They broke a window and forced the pilot and his passengers from the plane, including his wife, their two daughters ages 6 and 8 and a family friend.
The pilot did not respond to a request for an interview relayed through Baja Bush Pilots, whose members fly to Mexico and Central America.
We haven't spoken with them directly, but we understand they're safe, said Charles Smith, spokesman for the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana.
Drug traffickers have been known to steal small planes and use them to smuggle narcotics. The Florida-based Aviation Crime Prevention Institute has posted an alert stating that the Mexican government is seizing aircraft in an 'accelerated' manner. This means the traffickers will need to replace seized aircraft quickly to continue business.
AIG Aviation, which insures aircraft, is offering a $5,000 reward for the return of the stolen Cessna.
Library researcher Denise Davidson contributed to this report.
Sandra Dibble: sandra.dibble(at)uniontrib.com
Bandits Planejack Terrifed Boise Family at Mexican Airstrip
Michael Rollins - The Oregonian
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Didn't we see this in an episode of "Miami Vice"? Or in a Johnny Depp move? No. This was real. And awful. The Idaho Statesman interviews the dad in this terrifying crime:
A day after gunmen stole his Cessna airplane during a terrifying ordeal on a private airstrip in a small Mexican town, Patrick Moroney has a simple message for family and friends in Boise: "We are OK."
For a decade, Moroney has vacationed in Mulege, a coastal town on the eastern side of the Baja California Sur peninsula in Mexico.
A day after the attack, Moroney is still stunned.
"The important thing is our family is safe," Moroney said Wednesday night from Mulege. "They did take our aircraft and all of our belongings. But they didn't take us. And that is all that really matters."
"The whole thing is just surreal."
The robbers stole the six-seat single-engine Cessna Stationair as Moroney was about to take off from a hotel airstrip in Mulege Tuesday.
Moroney, 55, his wife, Kimberly, family friend Lin Hawkins, and two girls, ages 6 and 8, were in the plane when the thieves pulled a car in front of the plane, knocked out one of the windows and forced the group out at gunpoint.
Detective Juan Carlos de Jesus Jimenez told The Associated Press that the thieves then set fire to the car and flew off in the plane, leaving the group stranded. No one was injured. |
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