Was doomed plane the missing one?

DAKAR, Senegal - American authorities are investigating whether a Boeing 727 shattered in a deadly Christmas Day crash off West Africa was the same jet that vanished in Angola last year, setting off a worldwide search, a U.S. State Department spokesman said.

Also, a Canadian humanitarian-flight pilot told the Associated Press he saw a 727 with the missing Angola jet's tail number at Guinea's airport in June - a month after the jet disappeared.

The plane's old tail number was not fully covered, and the plane was reregistered in Guinea and flown by Lebanese-owned Union des Transports Africains, pilot Bob Strothers said.

"We saw it on the ramp," Strothers said. "A new registration had been painted on the aluminum part, and underneath . . . you could see the old registration number, which matches the plane that went missing."

The plane that crashed off Benin on Christmas Day, killing at least 130 of the 161 people aboard, was Guinean-registered and operated by Union des Transports Africains.

Strothers said he believed UTA had at least two Boeing 727s at the time of the crash, making it impossible for him to judge whether the vanished Angola plane and the crashed Benin jet were the same.

Strothers disclosed his information before the Christmas Day crash, in which the plane, carrying mostly Lebanese, clipped a building at the end of the runway and plunged into the Atlantic Ocean.

The information heightened the mystery surrounding the missing jet, which took off from an airport in Luanda, Angola, on May 25 and disappeared.

The United States has led an international hunt for the Angola 727, using satellite surveillance to check airstrips around the world, fearing terrorists might have taken the Angola plane for a Sept. 11-style attack.

American officials also have cited a possible business dispute as a reason for the disappearance.

Lebanese news media has suggested the planes were the same, but aviation officials in Lebanon and others who are knowledgeable about the country's aviation industry discounted the idea - saying the plane that crashed off Benin appeared much older than the one that went missing from Angola.

"We're aware of the reports," State Department spokesman Lou Fintor said. "We're checking into them."

UTA offices in Guinea and in Lebanon have been deserted since the Christmas Day crash, with police surrounding the Guinea offices.

The airline's owner survived the crash, but he and the plane's Libyan pilot have not been seen publicly since leaving the hospital.

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