HISTORY MEME || [3/5] Assassinations/Executions » Camarate air crash

Following the Carnation Revolution in 1974, Francisco de Sá Carneiro was elected Prime Minister on 3 January 1980, and Adelino Amaro da Costa became the first civilian Defense Minister. They were on their way to an election rally three days before the Portuguese presidential election, 1981 when their airplane crashed. Da Costa had chartered a Cessna for the trip; Sá Carneiro had intended to travel by other means, and joined the trip at the last minute.

The Cessna chartered by da Costa, crashed shortly after take-off from Lisbon Portela Airport. Witnesses saw the aircraft trailing debris before hitting high-voltage power lines and crashing in a fireball.

The incident was subject to many investigations. The initial investigation by the aviation authority concluded the crash was an accident caused by a lack of fuel in one of the tanks. The final police report in 1981 ruled out criminal actions. In 1983 the Attorney General suspended the investigation. Parliamentary investigations in 1990 and 1991 did not lead to a re-opening of the case, but after the fifth parliamentary inquiry in 1995, the case was re-opened where the victims’ bodies were exhumed, and a forensic report concluded that there had probably not been an explosion on the aircraft, although the possibility was not ruled out.

In 2006, after the 15 year statute of limitations took efect, former security agent José Esteves confessed to manufacturing an explosive device intended for an attack on da Costa’s plane. The intention had been for the device to cause a fire prior to take-off, permitting the occupants to evacuate safely, but giving a “warning” to presidential candidate António Soares Carneiro. 

 In 2013 Esteves told the parliamentary X Commission that in planning the operation he had been told that the newly elected Democratic Alliance government was causing problems with weapons sales. He also said he had been paid $200,000 by CIA agent Frank Sturgis to create the device, and that his firebomb device alone did not cause the crash, maintaining that additional explosives must have been involved.

Conspiracy theorists claim Defense Minister Adelino Amaro da Costa was the true target for assassination, for he had documents concerning the October surprise conspiracy theory and was planning on taking them to the United Nations’s General Assembly. According to this theory, Reagan promised to sell American weapons to Iran, to replace the old Portuguese ones; the Portuguese military were acting as middlemen (two of the Portuguese Presidential candidates, in 1980, were Generals, and one of them was promptly accused as responsible for the assassination by many Sá Carneiro supporters); a boat with the weapons was almost seized at Lisbon’s harbor. This theory is reinforced with the fact that Amaro da Costa was the one renting the plane, and Sá Carneiro a last minute passenger.