[juxtapilot]

Here's some interesting information from www.montanapilots.org

According to the Associated Press, gunmen held up a family of U.S. tourists in Mexico on Tuesday, April 15, and made off with their Cessna 206 Stationair, which is registered to a Boise company.

The robbers attacked the plane as Patrick Moroney, 55, his wife Kimberly, their 6-and-8 year-old daughters, and 38-year-old family friend Lin Hawkins, all of Boise, were about to take off from a hotel airstrip in the Baja California beach town of Mulege. More

Detective Juan Carlos de Jesus Jimenez said the thieves pulled a car in front of the six-seat Cessna knocked out one of its windows and forced the tourists out at gunpoint. They then set fire to the car and flew off in the plane.

U.S. officials said they had heard reports about the incident but had not yet been in contact with the victims.

The plane's identification number matched a craft registered to a company in Boise. Additional details were not immediately available.

Small aircraft are commonly used by Mexican drug cartels to smuggle narcotics.

Editor's note—I had sent an e-mail to Bobbi and Dave Powers who have a home in Mulege not knowing if they were still there or had returned to Montana. This is the e-mail response from Dave with more details about the incident:

Hi Art--This is Dave. I am in Mulege and Bobbi is in Arizona with a student from South Africa.

I know Pat, whose 206 was hi-jacked. I talked to him and his family about an hour after the fact. He was flying family with two little children out and had taxied to the south end to take off on 32. He had done his run-up while taxiing. He did a 180 and was face to face with a car which had followed him up the airstrip. Four Mexicans jumped the fence by the plane with guns drawn and the two in the car got out and all went to the plane with guns pointed. They ordered everyone OUT NOW OR DIE. Pat was not fast enough and they broke the pilot window and pointed the gun to Pats head and said OUT NOW OR DIE.

Everyone deplaned and the Mexicans pushed the car to the side of the runway and had already doused it with gasoline and torched it. They then jumped in the plane-all six-and took off and turned up river to the west. It appeared to observers they were on the verge of a stall. Full fuel, quite a little luggage left in the plane and the six Mexicans were not small. About 10 minutes later the plane was seen coming from the west over our home in Posada and heading south.

The six bandits had been around Mulege for over a week and were supposedly camped close to the end of the runway. The information was sent to all airports and thousands of pilots thru BajaBushPilots.com within minutes of the event. Our Maule was next to the 206 and is still there, I hope.

I know I will defiantly be more alert to all around me when I get ready to take off.

It is sad and I know it will deter many from flying to Mexico, but when you think of all the car hi-jacking in the US and this is the first, to my knowledge, of a private airplane being hi-Jacked in Mexico.The only good thing is Pat and family did not try to be heroes so no one was injured. I believe they all lost all their licenses, CC, passports, money, luggage, computers, cell phones, cameras etc.

Pat has had a home in Mulege for many years and has helped the town a lot when the hurricane came thru two years ago. He is active in other groups helping the locals also.

We had a turbo 210 stolen from the field a year ago but to my knowledge nothing else.