The friend of an Australian pilot killed in a Brazilian plane during a massive drug drop is convinced he was probably the victim of a larger conspiracy.
Timothy James Clark, 46, was flying over Coruripe, on the coast of the Alagoas region in Brazil’s far north-east, when his plane crashed around 1.30pm on September 14.
Clark, the sole occupant of the aircraft, died at the scene, surrounded by Australian snacks and 200kg of SpaceX-branded bricks of cocaine aboard the kit aircraft.
But a close friend of Clark has now told Daily Mail she believes he may have unwittingly become caught up in the international drug trade and was set up to fail.
‘I’m kind of freaked out by everything – this story didn’t just start this week for me,’ she told the Daily Mail.
‘I’m gutted, I’m shattered, my heart breaks beyond any word in our dictionary.
‘[But] I’m honouring my agreement to my beloved Timmy, that we had made.’
She added: ‘He’s found himself in a situation he clearly couldn’t get out of.’
Timothy James Clark (pictured) studied finance at university and trained as a pilot
Tim Clark, the sole occupant of the aircraft, died at the scene, surrounded by Australian snacks and 200kg of SpaceX-branded bricks of cocaine on board the kit aircraft
Timothy James Clark, 46, was flying over Coruripe, on the coast of the Alagoas region in Brazil’s remote north-east, when his plane crashed around 1.30pm on September 14
The former stock market trader, who used the nickname The Broker online, had previously been living in South Africa, 7000km from where his light plane crashed.
The Sling 4 kit aircraft had been registered in South Africa in January 2023 and was originally based at Tedderfield Airfield, just south of Johannesburg.
Clark – who began flying planes 15 years ago and posted several videos of himself flying in Australia – had also checked into the Tedderfield Airfield on Facebook.
By October 2023 though, it was photographed by planespotters at the Coroa do Aviao corporate aerodrome in Igarassu, 400km north of where it later crashed.
Additional fuel tanks were found in the wreckage of the aircraft, along with a homemade refuelling system to allow it to fly beyond its standard range.
The Daily Mail revealed Clark, from Lilydale in Melbourne’s eastern outskirts, was the director and secretary of a number of investment businesses that operated in Australia over the past few decades.
His companies included Stock Assist Group Pty Ltd and Gurney Capital Nominees Pty Ltd (which both remain registered with ASIC), TJC Nominees Pty Ltd (cancelled in July), and Bluenergy Asia Pty Ltd and Tick-Tack-Toe Pty Ltd (deregistered in 2021 and 2018 respectively).
‘I know the business and things and where he was until he went offline,’ his friend revealed, who asked to remain anonymous. ‘I knew from March that s*** was off.’
A sample of the drugs found onboard the doomed aircraft
She alerted authorities when he mysteriously cut off contact but her inquiries with Australian Federal Police and Department of Foreign Affairs turned up nothing.
‘I’m the one that started asking everyone, then contacted the official authorities asking for a welfare check,’ she said.
But Clark’s friend of 35 years said she was shocked by the Brazilian police’s allegations that he had become embroiled in the drug trade.
She said she knew nothing of any criminal links but suspects he may have become involved with shady people in positions of power abroad .
‘Tim knew some high-up people and had investments and lots of stuff,’ she said.
‘Someone needs to be boots on ground in South Africa to go to his home and office and get his stuff – his personal phone and other SIM cards – before someone else clears (it) out.
‘But it’s probably too late already and they’ll have already got everything.’
Brazil’s State Secretariat of Public Security last week issued a statement denying Clark’s plane was shot down by military police after local rumours that they had.
His aircraft crashed into a sugarcane field in Coruripe (pictured) with local police saying packages of SpaceX-branded cocaine were found in the wreckage
The department stated that no aerial operation was carried out to bring down the aircraft and that its actions were limited to seizing the drugs, recovering the body, and conducting preliminary investigations.
Clark’s friend claimed she knew the plane well.
‘Something isn’t right, there was no fire at the crash scene… but it was supposedly loaded with fuel and a self-refuelling system,’ she said.
‘I know that plane – I knew it when he got it and flew it back with a co-pilot.’
It is understood Clark also had access to a larger aircraft which she said would have been far better suited to the task he died doing.
There are now calls for Clark’s body to be returned home where an independent autopsy can be carried out.
Clark’s father knew nothing of his son’s death when contacted by thDaily Mail days after the tragedy.
‘I have got a son called Tim,’ he told the Daily Mail, but insisted his son was in South Africa and not Brazil.
‘No he’s not in Brazil. He’s in South Africa … he does have a pilot’s licence but he doesn’t fly … he’s got his learner’s licence,’ he said.
A driver’s licence indicated the deceased was Tim Clark from Melbourne
Mr Clark said he knew ‘nothing’ of the deadly crash and expected authorities would have already informed him.
On Friday, Zambia’s Civil Aviation Authority denied the crashed aircraft had been registered in Zambia as previously reported.
‘Following a review of our records, the CAA wishes to clarify that the aircraft referred to in the social media reports does not appear on the Zambian Aircraft Register,’ it stated.
‘The aircraft in question, a Sling 4 non type certified carried the registration ZU-IXM, which is not a Zambian registration mark. Zambia’s official registration prefix remains 9J as allocated by the International Civil Aviation Organisation.’
The ZU- prefix on the aircraft refers to homebuilt or experimental aircraft registered in South Africa, like Clark’s Sling 4 kit plane. Regular aircraft bear the ZS- prefix.
Clark’s Victorian driver’s licence – which still bears his father’s home address – was located among the wreckage and was captured by photographers at the scene.
The plane had reportedly been operating in Brazil for at least the last two years, and had been photographed at a Brazilian airfield 400km north of the crash site in 2023, nine months after it was registered in South Africa.
Where it was headed on its last flight remains unknown, with no flight details recorded with authorities.
The drugs had been branded with Elon Musk’s SpaceX logo
Testing identified the drugs found onboard as cocaine, which were wrapped in bricks carrying the SpaceX branding of Elon Musk’s spacecraft and rocket division.
Clark attended a Seventh-day Adventist Church-run school, the now-defunct Lilydale Adventist Academy.
He later went on to study finance at La Trobe University before training as a pilot.
In 2015, he worked for a company operating small planes to King Island, in Tasmania.
Photos posted online show him posing in the cockpit and alongside passengers. Other pictures feature him enjoying holidays with family, and partying with glamorous women at Melbourne bars.
It is unclear if he was employed as a pilot for a private company or if he owned the plane that crashed, but it appears to have travelled to Brazil from Africa around the same time as him.
Local law enforcement estimated the seizure was worth around nine million Brazilian Real (around AU$2.5million) to the shipment’s drug lords.
But while it remains unclear where the illicit substances were intended to be sold, 200kg of cocaine would have an estimated street value of $80million in Australia.
In Brazil, one gram of cocaine costs $5, about the same as the local price of a packet of cigarettes, while the same amount may fetch between $250 and $400 in Australia, which has among the highest prices for the drug in the world.
