What happened
On a night flight from Pointe Noire Airport to Luanda-4 de Fevereiro Airport, a twin-engine aircraft departed at 23:21 local time. The flight was a charter service carrying a crew and one passenger. Shortly before the scheduled departure, the passenger contacted security personnel to arrange for an arrival pickup in Luanda.
While the flight was in the cruise phase, approximately 50 km northeast of Luanda near the Caxito region, the aircraft vanished from radar tracking at 00:20 local time. Following the disappearance, search and rescue operations were conducted but were eventually terminated after several days when no debris or survivors were located. There were no survivors among the three occupants.
While it was theorized that the aircraft may have impacted the ocean off the Angolan coast during the night, the lack of wreckage prevented confirmation of a crash. In 2013, unverified reports surfaced suggesting the aircraft might not have crashed and that the passenger was being held by a militant group, though these claims were never substantiated by authorities in Angola or Mauritania.
Findings
No official wreckage was ever recovered, leaving the exact fate of the aircraft and its occupants unknown. The disappearance remains an unsolved mystery with no definitive evidence to confirm a crash site or the status of the passengers.