This page describes several aircraft that are alleged in media reports to have been used in the practice of
extraordinary rendition
Extraordinary rendition is a euphemism for state-sponsored forcible abduction in another jurisdiction and transfer to a third state. The phrase usually refers to a United States-led program used during the War on Terror, which had the purpos ...
, the extralegal transfer of prisoners from one country to another.
N313P
![Premier Executive Transport Services Boeing 737-700 KvW](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Premier_Executive_Transport_Services_Boeing_737-700_KvW.jpg)
N313P was a tailnumber assigned to a
Boeing 737
The Boeing 737 is a narrow-body aircraft produced by Boeing at its Renton Factory in Washington.
Developed to supplement the Boeing 727 on short and thin routes, the twinjet retains the 707 fuselage width and six abreast seating with two u ...
that the ''Chicago Tribune'' reported on Tuesday, February 6, 2007, flew from
Tashkent
Tashkent (, uz, Toshkent, Тошкент/, ) (from russian: Ташкент), or Toshkent (; ), also historically known as Chach is the capital and largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of 2 ...
to
Kabul
Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into #Districts, 22 municipal dist ...
,
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is borde ...
, on September 21, 2003, and then to
Szczytno-Szymany International Airport
Olsztyn-Mazury Airport ( pl, Port lotniczy Olsztyn-Mazury) is an international passenger airport in the North-East of Poland, branded as the gateway to the Masurian Lake District. It is located near Szymany, some 10 km from the centre of ...
in
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
, landing at 9 p.m. "It stayed on the ground for 57 minutes before taking off for
Baneasa Airport in
Bucharest, Romania
Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...
, an airport that, according to the
Marty Report, 'bears all the characteristics of a detainee transfer or drop-off point,'" states author Tom Hundley on page 14 of the ''Tribune''. The 737 then continued on to
Rabat, Morocco
Rabat (, also , ; ar, الرِّبَاط, er-Ribât; ber, ⵕⵕⴱⴰⵟ, ṛṛbaṭ) is the capital city of Morocco and the country's seventh largest city with an urban population of approximately 580,000 (2014) and a metropolitan populatio ...
, and
Guantanamo Bay, the Marty Report said. In 2004 the plane was used to render LIFG leader
Abdel Hakim Belhaj and his wife Fatima Bouchar to Libya.
"The registered owners of both planes
oeing 737, N313P, and Gulfstream V, N379Pappear to be
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
front companies
A front organization is any entity set up by and controlled by another organization, such as intelligence agencies, organized crime groups, terrorist organizations, secret societies, banned organizations, religious or political groups, advocacy gro ...
. Previous attempts by the ''Tribune'' to contact the owners produced a trail of non-existent people at unlikely addresses, or law firms that did not want to discuss the nature of their interest in aviation. Both planes have been involved in rendition cases documented by the ''Tribune'', other media and
EU investigators," states the ''
Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...
'' on page 14.
[Hundley, Tom]
"Remote Polish airstrip holds clues to secret CIA flights"
''Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...
'', Tuesday, February 6, 2007, Volume 160, Number 37, page 1, 14.
N379P
N379P was a tailnumber assigned to a
Gulfstream V
The Gulfstream V (Model GV, pronounced "G-five") is a long-range, large business jet aircraft produced by Gulfstream Aerospace, derived from the previous Gulfstream IV. It flies up to , up to and has a range. It typically accommodates four c ...
executive jet. The aircraft has been reported in several press sources as a
U.S. Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secur ...
prisoner transport, also known as "
Guantánamo
Guantánamo (, , ) is a municipality and city in southeast Cuba and capital of Guantánamo Province.
Guantánamo is served by the Caimanera port near the site of a U.S. naval base. The area produces sugarcane and cotton wool. These are traditi ...
Bay Express". The craft has been reported to being used to transport suspected
terrorists
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...
to undisclosed locations for either
extraordinary rendition
Extraordinary rendition is a euphemism for state-sponsored forcible abduction in another jurisdiction and transfer to a third state. The phrase usually refers to a United States-led program used during the War on Terror, which had the purpos ...
or into the
CIA prison system
CIA black sites refer to the black sites that are controlled by the CIA and used by the U.S. government in its War on Terror to detain combatant, enemy combatants.
US President George W. Bush acknowledged the existence of secret prisons operated ...
. It has been the subject of criminal complaints and parliamentary inquiries.
According to an in-depth investigation into the worldwide network of detention and interrogation facilities employed in the
War on Terror
The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is an ongoing international counterterrorism military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks. The main targets of the campaign are militant ...
, by the British
Guardian
Guardian usually refers to:
* Legal guardian, a person with the authority and duty to care for the interests of another
* ''The Guardian'', a British daily newspaper
(The) Guardian(s) may also refer to:
Places
* Guardian, West Virginia, Unit ...
newspaper, (March 2005):
Background
The first media mention of N379P was six weeks after September 11, 2001, when, according to the ''Chicago Tribune,'' a Pakistani newspaper reported that a student at the
University of Karachi
The University of Karachi ( sd, ; informally Karachi University, KU, or UoK) is a public research university located in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan. Established in June 1951 by an act of Parliament and as a successor to the University of Sindh ...
and a citizen of
Yemen
Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the north and Oman to the northeast and ...
, had been seen being forced onto the plane at
Jinnah International Airport
Jinnah International Airport ( ur, جناح بین الاقوامی ہوائی اڈا) , formerly Drigh Road Airport or Karachi Civil Airport, is Pakistan's busiest international and domestic airport, and handled 7,267,582 passengers in 2017 ...
by Pakistani security officers on the morning of October 23, 2001. The ''Chicago Tribune'' reported on the aircraft again on February 6, 2007, stating that N379P departed
Washington Dulles International Airport
Washington Dulles International Airport , typically referred to as Dulles International Airport, Dulles Airport, Washington Dulles, or simply Dulles ( ), is an international airport in the Eastern United States, located in Loudoun County and F ...
July 27, 2003, and flew to
Frankfurt, Germany
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its ...
according to FAA records. The FAA then records the Gulfstream taking off from
Tashkent, Uzbekistan
Tashkent (, uz, Toshkent, Тошкент/, ) (from russian: Ташкент), or Toshkent (; ), also historically known as Chach is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Uzbekistan, largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous ...
, on July 31, 2003, bound for
Glasgow, Scotland, and then return to Dulles. The ''Tribune'' then states that Polish aviation records indicate that N379P landed at
Szczytno-Szymany International Airport
Olsztyn-Mazury Airport ( pl, Port lotniczy Olsztyn-Mazury) is an international passenger airport in the North-East of Poland, branded as the gateway to the Masurian Lake District. It is located near Szymany, some 10 km from the centre of ...
, a remote airfield at
Szymany, Poland, at 2:58 a.m. on July 30, 2003, after a flight from Afghanistan. How the aircraft moved from Frankfurt to Tashkent remains unreported.
The Szymany airport is located southwest of the
Stare Kiejkuty intelligence base in northern Poland.
The executive jet with the tail number N379P was again brought to public attention by
Swedish TV4's documentary, ''Det brutna löftet'' ("The broken promise"), aired May 17, 2004. The documentary claimed that the expulsion of two men,
Ahmed Agiza and Muhammad al-Zery—ordered by the Cabinet—to Egypt on December 18, 2001, was carried out by hooded U.S. agents. The plane booked by the
Swedish Security Police (SÄPO) was cancelled when another plane arrived—N379P—a
Gulfstream V executive jet supplied by the firm (
Premier Executive Transport Services, Inc.) which works exclusively for the U.S. Defense Department.
Agiza and al-Zery were arrested and brought to Bromma airport in Stockholm where Swedish police handed them over to hooded operatives. The two prisoners had their clothes cut from their bodies by scissors, without their hand- and footcuffs being loosened. The naked and chained prisoners were given suppository of unknown kind inserted into their anus, and diapers were put on them. They were forcibly dressed in dark overalls. Their hands and feet are chained to a specially designed harness. On the plane, both men are blindfolded and hooded. The plane took off at 21.49 and set course towards Egypt.
Later on, when the Gulfstream's log books came into a journalist's hands, the wider scope became clear:
Appearance in fiction
N379P appears in the episode "Hundrede dage" of the Danish TV series ''
Borgen
Borgen may refer to:
Places
* Borgen, Akershus, Norway
* Borgen, Oslo, a neighborhood of Oslo, Norway
**Borgen (station)
* Borgen, Østfold, a suburb of Sarpsborg, Norway
* Borgen, Ullensaker, Norway
* ''Borgen'' ('the castle'), colloquial name ...
'' which focuses on the problems for the Danish prime-minister caused by the revelation of rendition flights landing at Thule. In addition, a Gulfstream V that is being used to carry out an extraordinary rendition appears in Jason Trask's 2011 novel ''I'm Not Muhammad'' (Red Wheelbarrow Books).
N596GA
N596GA was the tailnumber of a Gulfstream V, which has also been mentioned in print as a possible transport for the CIA program of extraordinary rendition. According to a 2008 article by writer Dave Willis, the plane was ordered in 1999 by the United States Air Force as a
C-37A, serial ''99-0405'', and was rolled out as N596GA but only briefly took up its military serial before reverting to the civil registration, issued on September 20, 2001, nine days after the
9-11
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...
attacks. It was registered to National Aircraft Leasing of Greenville, New Castle County in Delaware, "and is believed to have been used by the
Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System
The Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System (JPATS), nicknamed "Con Air", is an agency of the federal government of the United States charged with the transportation of persons in legal custody among prisons, detention centers, courtho ...
s (JPATS), managed by the
U.S. Marshals Service. JPATS is responsible for moving prisoners and non-US citizen criminals around and has its own fleet of aircraft, as well as frequently leasing others. N596GA is also said to have been used in the CIA's programme of extraordinary rendition against terrorist subjects."
[Willis, Dave, "''Distinguished Airlift''", Air Forces Monthly, May 2008, Stamford, Lincs, UK, page 79.]
N85VM
N85VM was the tail number of a
Gulfstream IV
The Gulfstream IV (or G-IV or GIV) and derivatives are a family of twinjet aircraft, mainly for private or business use. They were designed and built by Gulfstream Aerospace, a General Dynamics company based in Savannah, Georgia, United State ...
which newspaper reports have speculated may have been used as a
US Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national sec ...
or CIA prisoner transport.
[Edes, Gordon, "CIA uses jet, Red Sox partner confirms", ''The Boston Globe'', March 21, 2005](_blank)
/ref> Plane logs obtained by reporters show that the plane was in Cairo on February 18, 2003, the same day that the radical Egyptian cleric Abu Omar arrived in Cairo after being abducted in Italy, leading reporters to speculate that the Gulfstream IV may have been the plane used to render Abu Omar.[Crewdson, John, "Jet's Travels Cloaked in Mystery", ''Chicago Tribune'', March 20, 2005, archived at CommonDreams.org](_blank)
American and Italian intelligence officers were later charged with Abu Omar's abduction.[Wilkinson, T. (2006).]
''The Los Angeles Times'', July 7, 2006.
In addition to the trip to Cairo, between June 2002 and January 2005, the aircraft made 51 trips to Guantánamo Bay, as well as 82 visits to Dulles International Airport
Washington Dulles International Airport , typically referred to as Dulles International Airport, Dulles Airport, Washington Dulles, or simply Dulles ( ), is an international airport in the Eastern United States, located in Loudoun County and F ...
and Andrews Air Force Base. It also visited U.S. air bases at Ramstein and Rhein-Main in Germany, Afghanistan, Morocco, Dubai, Jordan, Italy, Japan, Switzerland, Azerbaijan and the Czech Republic.
See also
* Aero Contractors (US) Aero Contractors Ltd., a private charter company based in Smithfield, North Carolina, is said by some to provide discreet air transport services for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
The company was founded in 1979 by Jim Rhyne, a former pilo ...
* Air America (airline)
Air America was an American passenger and cargo airline established in 1946 and covertly owned and operated by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 1950 to 1976. It supplied and supported covert operations in Southeast Asia during the Vi ...
* Southern Air Transport
Southern Air Transport (SAT) (1947–1998), based in Miami, Florida, was a cargo airline best known as a front company for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) (1960–1973) and for its crucial role in the Iran-Contra scandal in the m ...
* Tepper Aviation
Tepper Aviation, Inc. was a privately held aviation company operating a fleet of Lockheed L-100 Hercules aircraft and was one of the largest civilian operators of L-100/L-382 aircraft. The airline may have suspended operations in 2006. On October ...
References
{{reflist, colwidth=30em
External links
Planepictures
(includes database of alleged rendition flights/planes)
Penal imprisonment
Extraordinary rendition program
Lists of aircraft