BUSTED! US Mystery Plane!

Another American “mystery plane” was busted last week, this time in Australia, at Illawarra regional airport in the seaside city of Wollongong, an hour south of Sydney, according to Daniel Hopsicker on Tuesday.

“Police seized a cache of 35 kilos of illegal drugs found on an American-registered Fairchild Merlin twin-engine turbo-prop during an initial search, sources told ABC Australia, and one local man, already known to police, had been arrested,” investigative reporter Damiel Hopsicker of Madcow Morning News reports.

“At the heart of the story of Australia’s current experience with the latest American-registered drug plane busted overseas is that this is not just another American ‘mystery plane.’

It’s a “stealth” mystery plane, according to Hopsicker.

“Crash Jet Had Air of Mystery,” headlined as New York Post story on an American-registered Gulfstream II luxury jet from St Petersburg caught carrying four tons of cocaine in the Yucatan in 2007. 

“How the U.S.-registered Gulfstream ended up in the hands of suspected drug traffickers,” reported the AP, covering the same story, “remains a mystery.” 

America’s “mystery planes” are the “Foo Fighters” of the 21st Century. 

“Investigating them is like chasing balls of light,” Hopsicker says. “Still, it may be possible to answer a few of the many unanswered questions on the U.S. side of the current imbroglio in Australia.”

Hopsicker doesn’t leave it there. The story becomes even more intriguing, as he discusses David Baddams, owner and chief pilot of Snow Goose International, the Australian aircraft ferrying company contracted to move the plane. Turns out that Baddams is  a retired Lieutenant Commander in the Australian Air Force and Top Gun-type fighter pilot extraordinaire.

“A post on the Snow Goose’s Facebook page revealed some details of the plane’s journey around the edge of the Pacific,” reports Hopsikcer. “When the controversy erupted, the company issued a press release, declaiming responsibility after delivering the plane to its destination, which, the release said, was not Australia, but the Philippines.“

Snow Goose’s contract with “Oregonian Aero Club LLC,” was to ferry the plane from the US to the Philippines.”

Read Hopiscker’s whole story here on Madcow Morning News:  http://www.madcowprod.com/?p=6135