[dsfyu404ed]

Getting airborne is pretty easy. Landing is far harder. That said if the pilot has any experience in similar sized aircraft and has the checklist for landing it should be doable so long as the weather isn't terrible and nothing out of the ordinary happens. If you're just trying to land on some particular miles long section desert then that makes things a lot easier. Trying to drop out of the sky onto a short runway in a valley that's just barely longer than your minimum stopping distance is not likely to end well for a pilot who is not very at home flying that particular type of aircraft.

IMO this aircraft is probably at the bottom of the Atlantic somewhere.

[_vn5r]

News reports and Wikipedia article mention that Ben C. Padilla was an American pilot and flight engineer and had a private pilot's license.

[smacktoward]

That he held a private pilot's license doesn't tell us much. You can get a private pilot's license without ever flying anything bigger than a single-engine Cessna. A multi-engined jet aircraft like a 727 is a completely different beast.

[dsfyu404ed]

Generally speaking someone who's qualified to lead an operation to "restore an aircraft to airworthy condition" is also technically qualified to fly it even if they don't have the proper credentials.