I didn’t get in touch
On January 30, 1979, at 20:23, a VARIG cargo flight, a Boeing 707-323C, lifted off from Narita International Airport in Japan bound for Los Angeles on RG-967. Roughly twenty minutes into the journey, the crew reported to Narita air traffic control that they were about 300 miles off the Japanese coast.
This was the last transmission from RG-967. A follow up contact was scheduled forty minutes later, but it never occurred. Dispatchers spent nearly an hour trying to reach the aircraft before declaring an emergency. The Japanese Self-Defense Forces, along with the Japanese navy, launched a search. After eight days of searching, no trace of the plane was found in the expected area. The absence of any visible fuel slick on the ocean surface added to the mystery, since a crash in open water typically leaves some fuel or debris behind.
The aircraft was built in 1966. Its crew was led by the seasoned captain Gilberto Araujo da Silva, then 53 years old, who had logged 23,000 flight hours. He had previously survived a similar Boeing 707 incident in which a midair fire forced a crash-landing in an onion field near Paris.
Combining the pilots’ extensive experience with the total lack of debris or wreckage produced a trio of dominant theories about the disappearance, aside from more sensational suggestions like alien involvement.
depressurization
The most straightforward explanation is rapid loss of cabin pressure. This scenario aligns with many aviation studies because it matches known aircraft behavior and does not require unlikely actors. A hole in the pressurized cabin allows internal air to rush out until the cabin pressure equals the outside atmosphere. RG-967 flew at elevations around 8,000 to 10,000 meters where oxygen masks are essential for survival. Yet depressurization does not always prove instantly fatal, and its effects can vary widely.
Aviation literature distinguishes three decompression types: explosive, rapid, and slow. Explosive events result from large hull breaches measured in square meters. Contrary to popular myth, the human body does not explode in the air; even with severe pressure loss, most people experience brief unconsciousness unless oxygen is immediately supplied. A historical example is the 1983 Flight 243 incident on a Boeing 737 where a roof blew away at 7,000 meters and most passengers returned home the same day.
Rapid decompression unfolds within seconds and typically causes quick onset symptoms but not universal barotrauma. It is plausible that crew and passengers could don masks in time, allowing the flight to continue briefly before a forced landing or diversion.
Slow decompression, the most dangerous variety, occurs with a tiny hull breach or gradual leak. It often goes unnoticed by the crew until oxygen levels decline enough to impair judgment. In such cases, some flights end with loss of consciousness and an attempted landing that fails due to fuel depletion or degraded performance. A case cited in investigations involved a Boeing 737 near Athens where a gradual loss of cabin pressure contributed to a crash after crew and cabin crew ran out of oxygen.
If a slow leak had affected RG-967 after takeoff from Japan, the pilots might have missed the warning signs while the plane continued on autopilot until fuel exhaustion ended the flight over an unknown point in the Pacific.
Conspiracy theories
The second line of inquiry concerns the cargo, which included 150 works by Brazilian artist Manabu Mabe. While Mabe may be obscure to the general public, art enthusiasts within Brazil and the international market recognize his relevance. Mabe’s life story—born to a Japanese Brazilian family who immigrated to Latin America and later earned income in the early career by hand-dyeing ties—adds a layer of intrigue for some observers.
Reportedly the paintings on RG-967 were valued around 1.2 million dollars in that era, a figure that would be substantially higher today. Some speculation has linked the plane’s disappearance to art thieves seeking the paintings as the primary motive. Yet, even amid several ownership changes over decades, none of the works surfaced in the public record for many years. While art theft happens, conducting a coordinated hijack and disappearance using a cargo aircraft would be an unusual method, particularly with six crew members unaccounted for and without corroborating radar or witnesses.
A third hypothesis entertains Soviet involvement in two forms. The first suggests navigational errors could have forced the plane off course into Soviet airspace, where it might have been shot down or forced to land with minimal public disclosure. The second posits a deliberate shootdown during a covert operation. This line references Viktor Belenko’s 1976 defection of a MiG-25 to Japan, which reportedly unsettled Soviet aviation and fueled posturing in the region. Proponents argue that critical MiG-25 components might have been aboard RG-967, prompting a drastic action to prevent their transfer to the United States.
Both purported Soviet scenarios face strong criticisms. An unintentional incursion into Soviet airspace would require a near total failure of both magnetic and gyroscopic instruments, a rare combination that would have to go largely unnoticed by the crew. If secret hardware were aboard, it seems unlikely that such a cargo would be publicly released without trace evidence or credible sightings. It is also improbable that a secret shipment would involve a vessel without a traceable radar or external observers.
Importantly, it remains virtually impossible to completely erase a large cargo aircraft from the sky without alerting others long before any signals could fail. Modern air defenses and tracking make a sudden loss of contact a high-risk event even when a convoy of fighters is involved. The absence of immediate confirmation or debris supporting a violent encounter makes these theories less plausible as explanations for RG-967’s disappearance.
In the end, many investigators lean toward the slow decompression scenario as the most credible, given the lack of physical evidence from the crash site. Without a wreckage trail or recovered remains, the case rests on interpretation and educated inference rather than definitive proof. The consensus view emphasizes that the mystery endures not because a dramatic story proved false, but because the data to confirm any one theory remains elusive and incomplete, leaving room for doubt and debate among experts and enthusiasts alike. This assessment is summarized in subsequent analyses by aviation historians and safety researchers who emphasize caution against drawing rapid conclusions from limited evidence. Attribution notes: aviation safety archives and regional maritime search records indicate the constraints and uncertainties that shape such cases.