When Brazilian gubernatorial candidate Janete Riva arrived at Pontes e Lacerda Municipal Airport on September 20 to head to her next campaign stop, her King Air C90GT (S/N LJ-1759, tail number PR-ATY) and two pilots she’d just spoken with were nowhere to be found. Ten days later they’re still missing, despite six days of intensive searching by Brazilian and Bolivian police in cities along the nearby border.
Local news outlet MidiaNews said the region lacks radar coverage but has an abundance of legal and clandestine private airfields. “We’ve spread out a net for information,” Mato Grosso state police inspector Gilson Silveira said. “Our goal is to find the [pilots] alive. The aircraft is secondary.”
Silveira drew similarities with a case in December last year when a Cessna 206 was hijacked from the state; forced to fly to Bolivia, the pilot was freed unharmed after 17 days. In 2010 a charter passenger hijacked a Seneca II to Bolivia, and that pilot too was later released unharmed.