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CBS News
03-03-2025
- CBS News
How a small plane, once used by Argentine military to throw citizens to their death, was later found in U.S.
Every once in a while we come across a story so extraordinary that it resists belief. Tonight, the saga of an airplane that doubled as an instrument of murder. During Argentina's ruthless dictatorship in the mid 70s, the Skyvan PA-51 was used to throw victims alive into the Atlantic ocean, to quote unquote "disappear" thousands of innocent citizens seen as a threat to the state. Those disappeared were meant never to reappear. Forty years after the end of the dictatorship, many of its crimes remain unsolved and unresolved. When an unlikely pair of investigators went looking for the death plane, their search for truth uncovered state secrets, damning evidence and a reminder of a dark period that echoes into the present. It was, quite literally, a vehicle for evil. This British-made Skyvan, now 50 years old, is grounded for good here at the former Navy School of Mechanics, or ESMA, in a Buenos Aires neighborhood. The facility is now a museum and a memorial to the 30,000 citizens tortured and murdered during the dictatorship. This was a death camp looming large in the middle of a thrumming city. Images of the victims adorn the walls—most were students, dissidents, and union members, never charged with a crime. This plane, where many of them met their death, would have been lost in the contrails of history, had it not been for an Italian documentary photographer, Giancarlo Ceraudo. Jon Wertheim: Why was it important, not just to return this plane to Argentina, but here to ESMA? Giancarlo Ceraudo: It's very important for the memory for-- for the next generation. This is real. This is an evidence. This was an instrument of death but now is a witness. The cockpit, just as it was when the military pilots flew their clandestine death missions — flying far enough over the Atlantic so the bodies wouldn't likely be recovered, and then dumping the victims out alive. To climb inside the plane is to experience an unmistakable chill of the past. Giancarlo grew up loving planes, but this flying coffin ended that romance. Jon Wertheim: You're emotional seeing this. Giancarlo Ceraudo: Si, very emotional, very emotional. How did a young Italian photographer—armed only with a camera, an eye for detail and burning curiosity—come to unravel one of the great national shames of Argentina? It all began in 2003, when Ceraudo was in Buenos Aires working on a project about the disappeared. He heard about the death flights in the 1970s, but the stories were never fully told. So many unanswered questions. And so little accountability. If there were flights, he reasoned, then surely there were planes and there were pilots. So where were they? Jon Wertheim: You knew those death flights existed. How did you start your search for the planes? Giancarlo Ceraudo: I had an idea but-- to start the investigation-- started with Miriam. Miriam is Miriam Lewin. She was a young student activist in 1977 when she was kidnapped, tortured and sexually abused. She was then taken to ESMA and was among the few who survived, though she never knew quite why. Later, she became a leading investigative journalist in Argentina, best known for unearthing the crimes of the dictatorship. When Ceraudo first contacted Miriam she told him she had other things on her mind. Miriam Lewin: And I said, "Look, we were looking for the Desaparecidos, the missing people. And then we started looking for the bodies. So we have plenty to think about." Jon Wertheim: People, not things. Miriam Lewin: Yeah. And he said, "I come from a different culture. In Rome, when they are digging a tunnel to extend the subway lines, they find a plate or a sculpture and they stop everything for, like, three years," right? Jon Wertheim: He comes from a culture where objects are-- are witnesses to history, and that hadn't occurred to anyone here? Miriam Lewin: Yeah. Giancarlo's passion paired with Miriam's reporting chops, and her own experience at ESMA. She'd seen other prisoners taken to the basement, and given what they were told was a vaccine. Only years later did she learn that it was a sedative, and that those drugged prisoners were put on board planes, flown over the ocean, stripped of their clothes before being flung to their deaths. Jon Wertheim: Dumping prisoners out of an airplane 10,000 feet above an ocean seems so extreme. Why would a military resort to this? Miriam Lewin: Death flights allowed them to disappeared the bodies of the disappeared. No trail, no clues whatsoever that could incriminate them. Miriam and Giancarlo began their search, poring over military records, hunting down sources and combing the Internet. They discovered that in the 1970s, the Argentine military purchased five Skyvans, workhorses used for transporting cargo, troops and… Skyvan Commercial: Leading parachutists of many nations have dropped from Skyvan, and they are unanimous that there's not another jump platform like it. Two of the fleet were shot down by the British during the Falklands War. Argentina's surrender in that conflict ended the dictatorship in 1983. The rest were sold off. They tracked one plane to the United States, where it was being used for skydiving excursions. Miriam Lewin: Maybe the owners didn't know about the terrible, obscure-- past of these planes. In 2008, Miriam and Giancarlo found the plane in Fort Lauderdale and later paid it a visit. To their surprise, the owner provided them with all the technical logs, detailing every journey the plane had ever flown. Miriam Lewin: I was very, very excited. I-- I couldn't believe that. I couldn't believe it. They brought the logs back to Argentina and asked for help deciphering the technicalities, but even decades after the dictatorship ended, there was still lingering paranoia. Aviation experts didn't want to talk. Miriam Lewin: What they said, "No, no. No way. They could kill me." But they were nothing if not persistent. They tracked down a source who explained the highly suspicious journeys occurring Wednesday nights tracing a route over the middle of the ocean — the departure and arrival points the same. Miriam Lewin: When he looks at them and goes, "Oh gosh. This is gold." Jon Wertheim: Why did he say that? Miriam Lewin: This is the first time that death flights could be documented and proven. Finding the logs was one thing, but Miriam and Giancarlo were determined to solve one of the most notorious and heinous abductions of the dictatorship. Every week, the mothers of the disappeared marched in the Plaza de Mayo, in front of the Presidential Palace, demanding to know the fate of their missing sons and daughters. The mothers became the most potent symbol of resistance against the dictatorship, and soon they became targets themselves. In December 1977, a group of 12 mothers and their supporters, including two French nuns, were meeting here at the Holy Cross Church in Buenos Aires when they were hauled away and taken to ESMA. They were seen by fellow prisoners being tortured, and then never seen again. Azucena Villaflor was one of the mothers. She had been searching in vain for her son who had disappeared. Cecilia de Vincenti is her daughter. Jon Wertheim: As the days turned into months, turned into years, what did you think had happened? Cecilia de Vincenti (in Spanish/English Translation): In reality, we didn't know what happened. Every single day we thought she was coming back: New Year's, Mother's Day. Every day we lived like this. What Cecilia and the other victims' families didn't know: in the days after those kidnapped were last seen, a rare storm washed up six bodies some 220 miles from Buenos Aires. Authorities in the nearby town secretly buried the remains in unmarked graves and a local doctor issued death certificates, noting the bodies had suffered multiple blunt force traumas. Jon Wertheim: What did that mean? Miriam Lewin: This means that they were compatible with-- those bodies-- having fallen from height. In the years after democracy was restored, forensic anthropologists began unearthing evidence of the dictatorship's crimes. In 2005, bodies in the cemetery were exhumed, and identified. Five were victims of the Holy Cross kidnapping. Azucena Villafor was one of them. Jon Wertheim: The ultimate purpose of these death flights was to-- to disappear the victims-- and sink to the bottom of the ocean. Your-- your mother did not disappear, did she? Cecilia de Vincenti (in Spanish/English Translation): The mothers and the nuns fought death just as they fought when they were looking for their children. The ocean brought them back as proof that the military was trying to disappear them. Miriam and Giancarlo began building a timeline for the days after the 12 were kidnapped from the Holy Cross church. And there it was in the logs: a three-hour flight over the Atlantic the night of Dec. 14, 1977. What's more, the log contained the names of the pilots. Giancarlo Ceraudo: I think this plane is a gift, yes. From the sky. For Miriam, the hard-boiled investigative journalist, this was the jackpot. Miriam Lewin: I thought that no one-- would deny what happened back then. Seeing that proof, seeing that horrible proof of a group of women being thrown alive into the ocean, being mothers and nuns, right? Innocent people, completely innocent people. The pilots of those death flights? They were hiding in plain sight. It was a glimpse into the banality of evil. Two of them were flying international commercial routes for Argentina's state airline. Miriam and Giancarlo's investigation figured prominently in the largest and perhaps most sensational trial in the country's history. In 2017—decades after the fact—an Argentine court convicted 48 people linked to ESMA for crimes against humanity. The pilots who flew the Skyvan PA-51 death flights, were sentenced to life in prison. For Miriam and Giancarlo there was one last assignment: bringing the Skyvan back from the United States to Argentina, where it would be a source of truth, irrefutable evidence of the horrors of the past. Miriam Lewin: Questioning, denying, or even vindicating what happened in those years will lead us into darkness again. We always said, "never again." So it was, on a misty morning in June 2023, the Skyvan PA-51 arrived at its final destination. Giancarlo was there taking the last pictures of this personal odyssey, this 20-year investigation. The families and friends of the victims were there as well. Miriam Lewin: You have to consider that I could have been a passenger of one of those flights. So-- I always ask myself-- why I survived? Miriam Lewin: Yes. Now I know definitely that there was a goal. There was a purpose of my survival. To get justice. Produced by Michael H. Gavshon. Field producer, Dawn Makinson. Associate producers, Nadim Roberts and Elizabeth Germino. Broadcast associates: Mimi Lamarre and Jane Greeley. Edited by Daniel J. Glucksman.
CBS News
03-03-2025
- CBS News
Survivor of Argentina's dictatorship finds justice tracking down "death flight" plane
Today, the British-made Skyvan airplane, now 50 years old, is grounded for good at the former Navy School of Mechanics, or ESMA, in Buenos Aires. The facility, once a death camp, is now a museum and a memorial to the 30,000 citizens tortured and murdered during Argentina's dictatorship. The Skyvan, and other planes like it, was where many of the "disappeared" spent their last moments before being t hrown to their deaths. The Skyvan might have been lost in the contrails of history if not for the curiosity of Italian documentary photographer, Giancarlo Ceraudo. "It's very important for the memory for the next generation, you know? This is real. This is evidence," Ceraudo said. "This was an instrument of death, but now [it] is a witness." Searching for an instrument of death Ceraudo, on assignment in Buenos Aires in 2003, heard about the death flights of the 1970s. The flights were a key part of the Argentine military junta's campaign against dissidents and perceived opponents, including activists, union members and college students. If there were flights, Ceraudo reasoned, then there were planes, and surely there were pilots. But where were they? In his search for the planes and the pilots, he turned to one of Argentina's most well-known and intrepid journalists, Miriam Lewin. As a young student activist in 1977, Lewin was kidnapped, tortured and sexually abused. She was then taken to ESMA. Lewin had seen other prisoners taken to the basement there and given what they were told was a vaccine. Only years later did she learn that it was a sedative, and that those drugged prisoners were put on planes, flown over the ocean and stripped of their clothes before being flung to their deaths. "Death flights allowed them to disappear the bodies of the disappeared," Lewin said in an interview. "No trail, no clues whatsoever that could incriminate them." Lewin was among the few who survived Argentina's notorious death camps, though she never knew why. She later became a leading investigative journalist in Argentina, known for unearthing the crimes of the dictatorship. When Ceraudo first contacted her about finding the death flight planes, she was skeptical. Lewin was focused on finding the people who went missing, not the tools used to make them vanish. "And he said, 'I come from a different culture. In Rome, when they are digging a tunnel to extend the subway lines, they find a plate or a sculpture and they stop everything for, like, three years,'" Lewin said. By finding the plane, they could unearth an irrefutable piece of evidence from the horrors of Argentina's dictatorship. How the infamous plane was found Lewin and Ceraudo began their search by poring over military records, hunting down sources and combing the internet for clues. They discovered that in the 1970s, the Argentine military purchased five Skyvans—workhorse planes used for transporting cargo and troops, and used for parachuting. Two of the planes were shot down by the British during the Falklands war. Argentina's surrender in that conflict ended the dictatorship in 1983. The rest of the planes were sold off. One went to the United States, where it was used for skydiving excursions and for delivering mail. Lewin and Ceraudo discovered the plane in Fort Lauderdale. The owner provided them with all of the plane's technical logs, which detailed every journey the plane had ever flown. They brought the logs back to Argentina to decipher them. They asked experts for help, but even decades after the dictatorship ended, people were afraid. Lewin and Ceraudo eventually tracked down a source who explained the highly suspicious journeys in the logs, tracing a route over the middle of the ocean. The departure and arrival points were the same. "He looks at them and goes, 'Oh gosh. This is gold,'" Lewin said. It was the first time the death flights could be documented and proven. Finding bodies of the victims Finding the logs was one thing, but Lewin and Ceraudo were determined to solve one of the most notorious and heinous abductions of Argentina's dictatorship. The mothers of the Plaza de Mayo are a group of mothers who marched and protested outside the Presidential Palace demanding to know the fates of their missing sons and daughters. They became the most potent symbol of resistance against the dictatorship, and soon they became targets themselves. In December 1977, a group of 12 mothers and their supporters, including two French nuns, were meeting at the Holy Cross Church in Buenos Aires when they were hauled away and taken to ESMA. They were seen by fellow prisoners being tortured, then never seen again. One of the mothers, Azucena Villaflor, had been searching in vain for her son. Villaflor's daughter, Cecilia de Vincenti, always hoped her mother would return. "In reality, we didn't know what happened. Every single day we thought she was coming back," de Vincenti said. "Every day we lived like this." Her mother was among those taken on a death flight. Days after the Holy Cross kidnapping victims were last seen, a storm washed up six bodies some 250 miles from Buenos Aires. Authorities in the nearby town secretly buried the remains in a common grave, but a local doctor issued death certificates, noting the victims had suffered multiple blunt force traumas. "This means that they were compatible with those bodies having fallen from height," Lewin said. In the years after democracy was restored in Argentina, forensic anthropologists began unearthing evidence of the dictatorship's crimes. In 2005, bodies in that common grave were exhumed and identified. Five were identified as victims of the Holy Cross kidnapping. Azucena Villafor was one of them. "The mothers and the nuns fought death just as they fought when they were looking for their children," de Vincenti said. "The ocean brought them back as proof that the military was trying to disappear them." Uncovering damning evidence Lewin and Ceraudo began building a timeline for the days after the 12 were kidnapped from the Holy Cross church. They looked at the plane logs and found a four-hour flight over the Atlantic the night of Dec. 14, 1977. What's more, the log contained the names of the pilots. For Lewin, this was the jackpot. "I thought that no one would deny what happened back then," she said. "Seeing that proof, seeing that horrible proof of a group of women being thrown alive into the ocean, being mothers and nuns, right? Innocent people, completely innocent people." The pilots of those deadly flights were hiding in plain sight. Two of them were flying international commercial routes for Argentina's state airline. Lewin and Ceraudo's investigation became critical evidence used by prosecutors in the arrest of the two pilots. In 2017, an Argentine court convicted 48 people linked to ESMA for crimes against humanity. The pilots who flew the Skyvan PA-51 death flights were sentenced to life in prison. Bringing the plane back to ESMA Forty years after the end of the dictatorship, many of the disappeared remain unaccounted for and many crimes remain unresolved. The Argentine government and human rights organizations estimate that between 15,000 to 30,000 people were killed or "disappeared" during the dictatorship After finding the plane and the pilots, Miriam and Giancarlo still had one final goal: to bring the plane home to Argentina so it could serve as irrefutable evidence of the horrors of Argentina's dictatorship. "Questioning, denying, or even vindicating what happened in those years will lead us into darkness again," Lewin said. "We always said, 'never again.'" The plane used to make some of them disappear was brought back to Argentina in June of 2023. Lewin, who knows she could have easily been a victim of the death flights, has always asked herself why she survived. Her investigation provided an answer. "There was a purpose to my survival," she said, "to get justice."
