November Flight Logs Summary
Thu, 23/12/2010 - 02:50 by shannonwatch
The Shannonwatch logs of U.S. military flights through Shannon in November show an unusually large number of Hercules military transport aircraft. On the other hand the number of U.S. Air Force and Navy executive jets was down. Kalitta Air, a company that has a U.S. military airlift contract used Shannon on at least four ocasions, and three planes that have come to our attention as suspect rendition aircraft also passed through.
During one 48 hour period covering November 12th and 13th, 4 Hercules C-130's, 4 C-9's (the military version of the DC-9 airliner) and a U.S. Air Force Boeing 737 passed through Shannon. The 737, which had the registration 02-0201 and used the call sign BOXER41, is operated by the Air National Guard based at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland. It landed shortly after midnight on Saturday 13th and took off again before 2am.
Kalitta Air, which was found to be covertly transporting laser-guided bunker busters through Prestwick a couple of years ago, landed at Shannon 4 times in November, just as it did in October. Kalitta flies charter and cargo operations into Afghanistan; between 1 July 2009 and 30 June 2010 it operated 302 commercial charter flights into Afghanistan according to recent reports. In addition, the company flew 66 missions under direct contract to the Air Mobility Command, for a total of 368 flights into Afghanistan.
At the beginning of November a Volga Dnepr Anatov An-124-100 landed at Shannon. It is known that the Russian airline has in the past taken cargo through Shannon for the U.S. Department of State.
Finally it is disturbing to note that suspected rendition planes are still passing through Shannon without any evidence of inspection by the Irish authorities. The planes are N475LC (1st Nov), N54PA (27 Nov) and N404AC (28 Nov). N475LC is a Gulfstream IV which is owned by a company with government contracts called L-3 Integrated Systems LLC. It was previously owned by Braxton Management Services which was a shell company for Centurion Aviation Services of Fayetteville, North Carolina. Centurion is linked to the CIA and potentially to rendition flights. (Photograph taken from North Carolina - Stop Torture Now website)
N54PA is owned by a company called VPC Planes LLC and has been operated by another company associated with renditions, Phoenix Air Group. N404AC, a Gulfstream-IV was identified in an Amnesty International report, Below the radar: Secret flights to torture and 'disappearance' as an aircraft linked to rendition flights.
Summaries of U.S. military traffic for each month of the year are available here. It should be noted that these figures only include flights recorded by Shannonwatch. The actual numbers of military flights through Shannon may be higher.