Aeropuerto Internacional Jorge Newbery
Buenos Aires, Argentina
2345 31 July 2005
When the Bell Ranger helicopter called Jorge Newbery Ground Control, announced that he was at twenty-five hundred feet over the Unicenter Shopping Mall on the Route Panamericana on a VFR local flight from Pilar and wanted permission to land as near as possible to the JetAire hangar, Ground Control immediately cleared the pilot to make a direct approach.
“You’re number one to land. There is no traffic in the area. Report when you are at five hundred feet over the threshold. Visibility unlimited. Winds are negligible.”
There is not much commercial late-night activity at Jorge Newbery, which is commonly thought of as Buenos Aires’s downtown airport. The airport is separated by only a highway from the river Plate and is
no more than—traffic permitting—a ten-minute drive from downtown Buenos Aires. Very late at night, the tarmac in front of the terminal is crowded with the Boeing 737s of Aerolineas Argentina, Austral, Pluna, and the other airlines which will, starting very early in the morning, take off for cities in Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil.
The informality of the radio exchange between the Bell Ranger and Newbery Ground Control would have driven an American FAA examiner to distraction, but in practical terms there was nothing wrong with it.
Ground Control had not bothered to identify the runway by number. There is only one, about seven thousand feet long. And since he had given the helicopter pilot permission to make a direct approach, and the winds were negligible, there wasn’t much chance the pilot would misunderstand where he was supposed to go.
“Newbery, Ranger Zero-Seven at five hundred over the threshold.”
“Zero-Seven, you are cleared to make a low-level transit of the field to the right, repeat right of the runway for landing at the JetAire hangar.”
“Mucho gracias.”
“Report when you land.”
“Will do.”
As the Bell Ranger came down the field, over the grass to the right of the runway, the doors of the JetAire hangar began to slide open.
A sleek, small, glistening white jet airplane—a Bombardier/Learjet 45XR with American markings—sat, nose out, behind one of the doors. It was connected to ground power and there were lights visible in both the cockpit and cabin.
Four men pushing a trundle bed, which would attach to the skids of the helicopter—the Ranger does not have wheels—and permit it to be rolled into the hangar, came out and waited for the helicopter to land.
“Newbery, Ranger Zero-Seven on the ground. Mucho gracias.”
“You’re welcome. Have a nice time.”
“I’ll try.”
The Ground Control operator had assumed—not without reason—that the Bell Ranger was owned by a wealthy estanciero who had flown into the city for a night on the town. That happened three or more times every night. Sometimes the tarmac in front of JetAire was as crowded with private airplanes and helicopters as the terminal tarmac was with airliners.
As soon as the Ranger had been trundled into the hangar, the doors began to slide closed again.
Three men came down the Lear’s stair door and approached the helicopter as the pilot pushed the cockpit door open.
The larger of them was Fernando Lopez, Castillo’s cousin. He was a dark-skinned man in his midthirties, six feet two inches tall and weighing well over two hundred pounds.
Lopez saw something he didn’t like on Castillo’s face. “You okay, Gringo?”
Castillo nodded.
“Solez?” Fernando Lopez asked.
Ricardo Solez was a special agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration assigned to the U.S. embassy in Buenos Aires. He had been drafted from the DEA by Castillo for the Estancia Shangri-La operation.
“He’s driving the Yukon back here,” Castillo said. “He’s all right.”
“I thought the kid was going to do that,” Lopez said.