What was Bolivia's "Pirate Plane"?

The Constellation N2520B, an L-049 registered in 1961 to Lloyd Airlines of Miami (unrelated to Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano), had previously flown for Braniff and Trans American Airlines. On July 29, 1961, it landed at El Trompillo airport in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, and the next day took off heading south without a flight plan; its five crew members, four Americans and one Brazilian, said it was a practice flight. In the city it was believed that these night flights carried contraband from the United States to Argentina and Chile, though this never went beyond popular suspicion.

The control tower alerted the Bolivian Air Force, which sent P-51 Mustang fighters. The crew ignored the order to head to Cochabamba, the fighters opened fire, and the Constellation attempted an emergency landing at El Trompillo. During the descent it dove to shake off the P-51s, and one of the fighters crashed, killing Captain Alberto Peredo Céspedes. The plane landed with its tires blown out and the crew was arrested. Accused of homicide, piracy, and smuggling, the five escaped from Bolivia—announced in November 1961—and were tried in absentia.

The plane ended up in the hands of the Military Aviation School and in 1979 was handed over to the municipality, which installed it in Boris Banzer Prada Park, on Avenida Uruguay. Since then it has served as a library and a bank branch, and has become a tourist attraction and an urban legend of Santa Cruz. President Víctor Paz Estenssoro ordered an investigation that ended with 85 military personnel detained and 130 dishonorably discharged. In 1967 the prosecution sought ten years in prison for each crew member, but none ever returned; pilot William Roy Robinson died on April 1, 2010, at age 90.