The Tribune

A TURBOPROP plane once used to deliver mail to The Bahamas from Florida has been revealed to have had a grisly history – with political detainees in Argentina having been thrown from the vehicle to their deaths during the country’s 1976-98 military dictatorship.

The plane was one of five Short SC.7 Skyvan aircraft used for death flights in Argentina, according to a report by the Associated Press – and the vehicle later used for mail flights in The Bahamas has now been bought and flown back to Argentina where it will be put on display to help Argentines understand the reality of the dictatorship, according to activists.

Of the five Skyvan planes known to have been used in death flights, two had been destroyed in the 1982 war with Britain over the Falkland Islands. The three others were sold in 1994 to CAE Aviation, a Luxemburg-based firm. One of those planes was sold to GB Airlink, which used it to provide private mail services to the Bahamas from Florida.

After a campaign by activists, Argentina’s government decided to buy the plane back – and it was located at a skydiving company in Phoenix, Arizona.

The plane’s return was enabled by Italian photographer Giancarlo Ceraudo, who spent years seeking out “death flight” planes. He said: “The planes had to be recovered because they were an important piece, like the (Nazi) gas chambers, a terrible tool.”

Argentina’s junta is widely considered the most deadly of the military dictatorships that ruled much of Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s. It detained, tortured and killed people suspected of opposing the regime. Human rights groups estimate 30,000 were slain, many of whom disappeared without a trace.