Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - Reem A Barakat -USA - According to published reports, King Abdullah's helicopter departed from Mexico city on its way to Veracruz with a scheduled stop in Cordoba's (Juan Antonio Perdomo Diaz) airport to refuel. The pilot was "unable to land" the helicopter on the airstrip, in stead he landed in a baseball field in a nearby town. El Sol Del Cordoba news confirmed that the King's Blackhawk experienced "hard landing" due to shortage of fuel. The same news outlet published pictures showing the same helicopter being refueled. The caption: "One of the helicopters carrying the King Abdullah II bin al-Hussein of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan."
On Feb 6 2014, the weather condition in that part of Mexico was dry, mild, with light wind. Cordoba-Cuitláhuac weather report shows:
Partly cloudy
Day High: 21c /70f
Night Low: 14c /57f
Wind speed: 10km/6.3m E,SE
Visibility: 9.5km /6m
Precipitation: 0
Weather reports confirmed that no unpredictable meteorological changes occurred that day. In reality, the standard preflight weather planing would have anticipated possible severe weather conditions.
And, since the helicopter had a VFR (visual flight reference) over the 3km minimum visibility, poor visibility was not a factor in landing the helicopter in a baseball field,
The appearance of two top high ranking Mexican officials, the Federal Secretary of Navy Marina Mexico and the Secretary of National Defense, at the baseball field, located 350km east of Mexico city, has fueled speculations. Their arrival "within minutes" for this unscheduled landing presents a number of questions that remain unanswered. In addition, a federal official said to Mexico's Quadratín Agency, on condition of anonymity, that the king was "headed to another place, not to be identified, for security reasons." Since then, there has been no reported public appearance of the King.
Knowing that the incident occurred on Thursday, Feb 6, at approximately 5:30pm(Mexico time) i.e.,1:30am Friday morning (Jordan time), It took the Royal court more than 35hrs.to issue a statement that failed to clarify the circumstances surrounding the incident and assure the public of the King's safety.
Jordan's diplomatic representative in Mexico, Honorary Consul Frank J. Devlyn-Mortensen could not be reached for comments. Mr.Devlyn-Mortensen is a 75yr.old businessman in charge of the Devlyn Optics family business.