Death flights

During the Argentine Dirty War, from 1976 to 1983 many thousands of people disappeared, kidnapped clandestinely by groups acting for the dictatorship. Human rights groups in Argentina often cite a figure of 30,000 disappeared; Amnesty International estimates 20,000.[1] Many were killed in death flights, a practice initiated by Admiral Luis María Mendía, usually after detention and torture. Typically they were drugged into a stupor, loaded into aircraft, stripped, and dropped into the Río de la Plata or the Atlantic Ocean.

According to the testimony of Adolfo Scilingo, a former Argentine naval officer convicted in Spain in 2005 for crimes against humanity under the doctrine of universal jurisdiction, there were 180–200 death flights during the years 1977 and 1978; Scilingo confessed to participating in two such flights, with 13 and 17 people killed respectively.[2] He estimated that the navy conducted the flights every Wednesday for two years, 1977 and 1978, and that 1,500 to 2,000 people were killed.[3]

Victims were sometimes made to dance for joy in celebration of the freedom that they were told awaited them. In an earlier interview, in 1996, Scilingo said, "They were played lively music and made to dance for joy, because they were going to be transferred to the south. ... After that, they were told they had to be vaccinated due to the transfer, and they were injected with Pentothal. And shortly after, they became really drowsy, and from there we loaded them onto trucks and headed off for the airfield."[4] Scilingo said that the Argentine Navy was "still hiding what happened during the Dirty War".[5]

In May 2010, Spain extradited pilot Julio Alberto Poch to Argentina. Poch, born in 1952, had been arrested in Valencia, Spain, on September 23, 2009 and was wanted in Argentina for his alleged participation as a pilot on the death flights.[6] At his trial in February 2013, Poch not only denied that he had participated, but claimed that all he knew about death flights was from what he had read.[7]

In April 2015 further arrests were made.[8] It was reported that flights had started even before 1976, and continued until 1983. An organised military structure was in place to carry out these flights, Batallón de Aviación del Ejército 601 (Army Air Battalion 601), with a commander, sub-commander, chief of staff, and officers of five companies making up the unit. Soldiers who refused to take part, as well as others who acted as airfield guards and runway cleaners, testified that they had seen live people and corpses loaded onto aircraft; after taking off, the planes returned empty.

On 12 March 2016 Interpol, through the National Police of Colombia, arrested Juan Carlos Francisco Bossi in the city of Medellín.[9] Also known as El doctor, Bossi is credited for activating the death flights during the Dirty War and is wanted by the Argentine authorities for taking part in death flights and forced disappearance of over 30,000 people.[10] After his arrest, Bossi confessed to the Colombian authorities of being responsible in the deaths of 6,000 individuals.[11]

A five-year trial (nicknamed "the ESMA mega-trial" or the "Death Flights trial") of 54 former Argentine officials accused of death flights and other crimes against humanity (lesa humanidad) heard 830 witnesses and investigated the death of 789 victims. The trial reached a verdict on 29 November 2017. 29 defendants were sentenced to life in prison; six others were acquitted; all other defendants were sentenced to prison terms ranging from eight to 25 years.[12][13]

Oregier Benavente, Pinochet's former personal helicopter pilot, has admitted that, many times, he threw prisoners into the ocean or into the high peaks of the Andes.[14]

Flights were also used to make bodies of already killed dissidents disappear. A testimony describes the following procedure: corpses were put in gunny sacks, the sacks were attached to a piece of rail using wire, and a second gunny sack was put around both. The sacks were carried on a pickup truck to the helicopters that flew towards the open sea off the coast of the Valparaíso Region,[15] where the bodies were thrown into the ocean. Osvaldo Romo confessed in a 1995 interview to having participated in death flights. Showing no remorse, he added, "Now, would it not be better throwing bodies into a volcano?"[16]

In 2001, Chilean President Ricardo Lagos informed the nation that during Pinochet's rule, 120 civilians had been tossed from helicopters into "the ocean, the lakes and the rivers of Chile".[17]

Death flights were used during the Algerian War by French paratroopers of the 10th Parachute Division under Jacques Massu during the Battle of Algiers. After it was discovered that the corpses sometimes resurfaced, the executioners began to attach concrete blocks to their victims' feet. These victims came to be known as "Bigeard's shrimps" (crevettes Bigeard), after one of the paratrooper commanders, Marcel Bigeard.[18][19][20]

During the Malagasy Uprising of 1947, in Mananjary hundreds of Malagasy were killed, among them 18 women and a group of prisoners thrown from aircraft.[21]

During the Mobutu era, an unknown number of people were extrajudicially executed by being dropped from helicopter into the Zaire River, the Kinsuka Rapids or Lake Kapolowe (in the Shaba region).[22]

Scholars have compared the practicalities of the Argentine death flights to the US-led procedure of extraordinary rendition during the War on Terror, noting in particular how the two practices converge in many of their material and technological resources.[23]

• In The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980), soldiers threaten to throw two captured guerrillas out of a helicopter if they do not reveal information. The first guerrilla is pushed out blindfolded and quickly confesses in panic, not realizing the helicopter had already landed and he has been tricked.
• In the TV series Narcos (2015–2017), Search Bloc agent Colonel Carillo throws two of Pablo Escobar's sicarios out of a military helicopter when they withhold information that may lead to the capture of the infamous drug kingpin.
• On the Internet, some alt-right commenters use the phrase "free helicopter ride" to refer to killing left-wingers and other political opponents, particularly opponents of President Donald Trump,[24][25][26] mostly in reference to Pinochet.[27]

• Forced disappearance
• Operation Condor

• Argentina holds 'death flights' trial. – video report by Al Jazeera America. November 29, 2012.