65 Pounds Of Cocaine In Cockpit

Illegal drugs have long been smuggled into the United States in the baggage carried by commercial airliners or in condoms swallowed by passengers. But this week, nearly 65 pounds of cocaine was discovered hidden inside the cockpit of an American Airlines jetliner traveling from Denver to Dallas.

Mechanics for American Airlines found the cocaine early Thursday morning when they boarded the Boeing 757 jetliner at a gate in the Dallas-Fort Worth airport to modify an electronic system with components under the cockpit’s ceiling panel.

The Drug Enforcement Agency investigators who were summoned retrieved 100 brick-shaped packets of cocaine individually wrapped in black plastic and packed inside the overhead panels or dangling behind the side panels, four or five to a string.

Law enforcement officials said they could not recall a case when such a large cache was stuffed inside a cockpit, a confined area that is off limits to almost everyone but the flight crews. The cocaine is worth nearly $3 million if sold on the street.

Johnny Phelps, the special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s operation in Dallas, said investigators do not know who hid the cocaine aboard the plane or how they planned to retrieve it. He said the investigation is continuing.

While its latest flight originated in Denver, the cocaine appears to have been smuggled aboard in Latin America, possibly Colombia. From March 7 to 20, the airliner visited Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Honduras and several Caribbean destinations, American Airlines said.

The discovery of the cocaine has buttressed suspicions among law enforcement officials that narcotics traffickers are in no hurry to retrieve narcotics once they are hidden on an airliner.

“They are so confident of their concealment techniques that they are willing to have it on a plane and fly around for a while before they can get it off,” said Louis Bacigalupo, of the Customs Service’s contraband enforcement team at John F. Kennedy International Airport.