CIA Airline

[Huey II]

Gibt es heute eigentlich noch ne Art "Air America"?
Diese von CIA betriebe Airline war ja währendes Vietnamkonflikts gegründet worden und verschwand relativ schnell wieder, als Saigon 1975 fiel. Gibt es heute eine noch vom CIA betriebe Airline? In Afghanistan sind ja diese SOG Einheiten des CIA unterwegs doch vom Air America keine Spur.

[Veith]

Einguter Tip dazu war im Zusammenhang mit den US-Überflügen über Österreich: Airpower.at

Danach ging die Nachfolgerorganisation "Southern Air Transport" (SAT) 1990 überraschend Pleite. Nunmehr scheint eine "Tepper Aviation Inc." die Nachfolge angetreten zu haben.

Nicht so überraschend wohl in einen Waffen-Drogen-Deal CIA-Aserbaidschan verstrickt.

Disclamer
Leider notwendiger Hinweis: Infos ausschließlich lt. o.g. Website!

[TF-104G]

Ich hab so um den dreh 92/93 öfters mal B.727 der Key Air auf der Nellis AFB gesehen.Ich denk mal diese Airline war auch nicht so ganz Koscha und gehörte wohl eher dem CIA.Flogen ja auch mehr auf Milbasen rum als auf Linienflügen.Aber Key Air gibt es auch nicht mehr.Vermehrt kommen zivil zugelassene Flieger über Frankfurt wie z.B B.737BBJ N717P (oder war es 313P?) oder DHC-8 N800LL,seit einer Woche steht in Frankfurt bei der USAF eine DHC-6 in der Halle (die N6161Q).Ich denk mal das diese auch für die CIA unterwegs sind oder dem Verein gehören.Teilweise größere Flieger (wie z.B die 737,DHC-8) und die keiner Airline angehören und sich dann noch auf US-Milbasen rumtummeln.

[Huey II]

Die CIA spielt in Sachen eigenen Airlines geheim. Es werden wahrscheinlich nie mehr so offene Airlines wie "Air America" bekannt werden. All diese Airlines seit 75 sind daher anonym und mehrheitlich unter normalen Airlines zu finden.

[Grimmi]

Thread herauskram

Unter anderem während der Operation Enduring Freedom waren ja auch vermehrt von Fluggeräten des CIA's und/oder einfach zivil immatrikulierten zu lesen (Beispiel .

Letzte Woche kam nun in einer Sendung des ZDF (Frontal21) ein interessanter Bericht zum Thema, der Hier auszugsweise nachzulesen ist.

Nun meine Frage - hat jemand von Euch auch schon solche Maschinen aufgenommen oder weitere Info's ? Sie sollen ja u.a. in Rammstein und Frankfurt regelmässig vorbeischauen ?

Eine kleine Hilfe bringt Euch evtl. diese Seite hier: http://www.spyflight.co.uk/CIA.HTM

Greetz, Grimmi

[Starfighter]

key air wurde seinerzeit glaube ich hauptsächlich zum transport von F-117-piloten zwischen den verschiedenen bases verwendet.

[doncorleone117]

Gemäss einem Artikel der SonntagsZeitung vom 15. Mai 2005 sollen Terrorverdächtige auch durch die Schweiz transportiert worden sein. Leider kein Link zur Online Ausgabe da man bezahlen muss.

[stevoe]

Ein bißchen Stoff zur Geschichte der Air America (und ein paar anderen Spezial-Airlines) gibt es hier: http://www.air-america.net

[Bleiente]

Soetwas ähnliches gibt noch:

"....

Über drei Scheinfirmen - "Tepper Aviation", "Pegasus Technologies" und die größte, "Aero Contractors" - betreibt der US-Geheimdienst eine regelrechte Fluglinie: von luxuriös umgebauten Boeing 737 Business Jets über Kleinmaschinen vom Typ Gulfstream V bis zu militärischen Transportmaschinen; insgesamt 26 Flugzeuge.
"Wenn die Administration der CIA einen Auftrag gibt, dann deswegen, weil sie nicht groß verkünden will, dass die US-Regierung dahinter steckt", erklärt Jim Glerum, einstiger CIA-Agent, der Zeitung. Die CIA nützt die zivile Tarnung unter anderem, um Terrorverdächtige zu Befragungen in verschiedene Länder der Welt zu fliegen, wo man bei den Verhörmethoden weniger zimperlich vorgeht. Zusätzliche werden US-Agenten unauffällig zu Einsätzen ins Ausland gebracht.
In einem Zivilflugzeug von "Aero Contractors" wurde auch der deutsche Staatsbürger Khaled al-Masri entführt und nach Afghanistan verfrachtet, bevor man ihn nach mehreren Wochen wieder frei ließ: Der amerikanische Auslandsgeheimdienst hatte ihn für einen Terroristen gehalten, jedoch schlicht seine Identität verwechselt.
..."

http://www.diepresse.com/Artikel.asp...rt=c&id=485789

[Grimmi]

Ich habe hier noch den vollen Artikel der New York Times:

May 31, 2005

C.I.A. Expanding Terror Battle Under Guise of Charter Flights

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

This article was reported by Scott Shane, Stephen Grey and Margot Williams
and written by Mr. Shane.

SMITHFIELD, N.C. - The airplanes of Aero Contractors Ltd. take off from
Johnston County Airport here, then disappear over the scrub pines and fields
of tobacco and sweet potatoes. Nothing about the sleepy Southern setting
hints of foreign intrigue. Nothing gives away the fact that Aero's pilots
are the discreet bus drivers of the battle against terrorism, routinely sent
on secret missions to Baghdad, Cairo, Tashkent and Kabul.

When the Central Intelligence Agency wants to grab a suspected member of Al
Qaeda overseas and deliver him to interrogators in another country, an Aero
Contractors plane often does the job. If agency experts need to fly overseas
in a hurry after the capture of a prized prisoner, a plane will depart
Johnston County and stop at Dulles Airport outside Washington to pick up the
C.I.A. team on the way.

Aero Contractors' planes dropped C.I.A. paramilitary officers into
Afghanistan in 2001; carried an American team to Karachi, Pakistan, right
after the United States Consulate there was bombed in 2002; and flew from
Libya to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the day before an American-held prisoner said
he was questioned by Libyan intelligence agents last year, according to
flight data and other records.

While posing as a private charter outfit - "aircraft rental with pilot" is
the listing in Dun and Bradstreet - Aero Contractors is in fact a major
domestic hub of the Central Intelligence Agency's secret air service. The
company was founded in 1979 by a legendary C.I.A. officer and chief pilot
for Air America, the agency's Vietnam-era air company, and it appears to be
controlled by the agency, according to former employees.

Behind a surprisingly thin cover of rural hideaways, front companies and
shell corporations that share officers who appear to exist only on paper,
the C.I.A. has rapidly expanded its air operations since 2001 as it has
pursued and questioned terrorism suspects around the world.

An analysis of thousands of flight records, aircraft registrations and
corporate documents, as well as interviews with former C.I.A. officers and
pilots, show that the agency owns at least 26 planes, 10 of them purchased
since 2001. The agency has concealed its ownership behind a web of seven
shell corporations that appear to have no employees and no function apart
from owning the aircraft.

The planes, regularly supplemented by private charters, are operated by real
companies controlled by or tied to the agency, including Aero Contractors
and two Florida companies, Pegasus Technologies and Tepper Aviation.

The civilian planes can go places American military craft would not be
welcome. They sometimes allow the agency to circumvent reporting
requirements most countries impose on flights operated by other governments.
But the cover can fail, as when two Austrian fighter jets were scrambled on
Jan. 21, 2003, to intercept a C.I.A. Hercules transport plane, equipped with
military communications, on its way from Germany to Azerbaijan.

"When the C.I.A. is given a task, it's usually because national policy
makers don't want 'U.S. government' written all over it," said Jim Glerum, a
retired C.I.A. officer who spent 18 years with the agency's Air America but
says he has no knowledge of current operations. "If you're flying an
executive jet into somewhere where there are plenty of executive jets, you
can look like any other company."

Some of the C.I.A. planes have been used for carrying out renditions, the
legal term for the agency's practice of seizing terrorism suspects in one
foreign country and delivering them to be detained in another, including
countries that routinely engage in torture. The resulting controversy has
breached the secrecy of the agency's flights in the last two years, as
plane-spotting hobbyists, activists and journalists in a dozen countries
have tracked the mysterious planes' movements.

Inquiries From Abroad

The authorities in Italy and Sweden have opened investigations into the
C.I.A.'s alleged role in the seizure of suspects in those countries who were
then flown to Egypt for interrogation. According to Dr. Georg Nolte, a law
professor at the University of Munich, under international law, nations are
obligated to investigate any substantiated human rights violations committed
on their territory or using their airspace.

Dr. Nolte examined the case of Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen who
American officials have confirmed was pulled from a bus on the
Serbia-Macedonia border on Dec. 31, 2003, and held for three weeks. Then he
was drugged and beaten, by his account, before being flown to Afghanistan.

The episode illustrates the circumstantial nature of the evidence on C.I.A.
flights, which often coincide with the arrest and transporting of Al Qaeda
suspects. No public record states how Mr. Masri was taken to Afghanistan.
But flight data shows a Boeing Business Jet operated by Aero Contractors and
owned by Premier Executive Transport Services, one of the C.I.A.-linked
shell companies, flew from Skopje, Macedonia, to Baghdad and on to Kabul on
Jan. 24, 2004, the day after Mr. Masri's passport was marked with a
Macedonian exit stamp.

Mr. Masri was later released by order of Condoleezza Rice, the national
security adviser at the time, after his arrest was shown to be a case of
mistaken identity.

A C.I.A. spokeswoman declined to comment for this article. Representatives
of Aero Contractors, Tepper Aviation and Pegasus Technologies, which operate
the agency planes, said they could not discuss their clients' identities.
"We've been doing business with the government for a long time, and one of
the reasons is, we don't talk about it," said Robert W. Blowers, Aero's
assistant manager.

A Varied Fleet

But records filed with the Federal Aviation Administration provide a
detailed, if incomplete, portrait of the agency's aviation wing.

The fleet includes a World War II-era DC-3 and a sleek Gulfstream V
executive jet, as well as workhorse Hercules transport planes and
Spanish-built aircraft that can drop into tight airstrips. The flagship is
the Boeing Business Jet, based on the 737 model, which Aero flies from
Kinston, N.C., because the runway at Johnston County is too short for it.

Most of the shell companies that are the planes' nominal owners hold permits
to land at American military bases worldwide, a clue to their global
mission. Flight records show that at least 11 of the aircraft have landed at
Camp Peary, the Virginia base where the C.I.A. operates its training
facility, known as "the Farm." Several planes have also made regular trips
to Guantánamo.

But the facility that turns up most often in records of the 26 planes is
little Johnston County Airport, which mainly serves private pilots and a few
local corporations. At one end of the 5,500-foot runway are the modest
airport offices, a flight school and fuel tanks. At the other end are the
hangars and offices of Aero Contractors, down a tree-lined driveway named
for Charlie Day, an airplane mechanic who earned a reputation as an engine
magician working on secret operations in Laos during the Vietnam War.

"To tell you the truth, I don't know what they do," said Ray Blackmon, the
airport manager, noting that Aero has its own mechanics and fuel tanks,
keeping nosey outsiders away. But he called the Aero workers "good
neighbors," always ready to lend a tool.

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