Two American pilots who claim they were ambushed by a military force on a routine fuel stop have been detained in Guinea for six weeks according to various reports. Fabio Espinal Nunez of New Jersey and Brad Schlenker of Illinois have been in jail in the West African country since Dec. 30. “There were around 100 Army people and they were pointing AK-47s at us and talking in French, which we do not know,” Nunez told CBS New York. They were flying a Brazilian family from Suriname to Dubai and had permission to make the fuel stop. It’s not clear at which airport the confrontation occurred.
Nunez said they contacted local air traffic control and were cleared to land. The pilots’ families are now appealing directly to President Donald Trump to intervene. They say the men appear to be caught in the middle of a political struggle between the military and local government. The families claim that three civil government judges have cleared the men. “The military is taking over the government there, and for whatever reason the civil government is allowing their release and the military is not,” said Lauren Stevenson, Nunez’s fiancé.
