Talk:Rendition aircraft

Untitled

 * Note: This article, Rendition aircraft, has been expanded and renamed from an earlier aircraft-specific article, N44982. The comments below, dated from before 2007, all refer to the earlier, single-aircraft version. Akradecki 00:11, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

An ambitious first attempt to create a biography of this mysterious ghost aircraft. There is a lot of information available out there but it needs cross confirming. Its not an attempt to reveal any conspiracy theory badged with aviational facts and confirmed flight logs, though sometimes it is necessary to mention speculation as they are what brought this aircraft to public attention. notable dates

also the article needs condensing formatting and grammar check by native speakers http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/25/opinion/main619513.shtml http://www.tkb.org/NewsStory.jsp?storyID=58830

http://www.nowpublic.com/node/1609

Map
The map shows flights from Tashkent. Besides the fact that between 2001 and 2005 around 309 CIA flights went to Frankfurt a. M. in Germany (according to the German inquiry board that investigated these incidents concerning the german secret service BND), Tashkent is the main capital of Uzbekistan. The map shows it in Turkmenistan. So the map is wrong. Sorry.

Additionally there were further starts from Frankfurt to serveral destinations (Numer of flights in brackets. I can´t copy it, so look for yourselfe at pg. 56, 57: http://www.bundestag.de/aktuell/archiv/2006/pkgr_irak/bericht_breg_offen.pdf

NPOV
Use of "kidnapping" in reference to "delivery (kidnapping) of detainees" and "outsourcing torture" in reference to "undisclosed foreign or secret locations for advanced interrogation" have given this article a POV tone. Though it is supports by the article quoted, it doesn't provide absolute truth or fact to make such claims, as well the article for the most part has a non neutral, and a speculative not informative tone. --Boothy443 | comhrÚ 10:36, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

its gone

Image in this article might get deleted
This article currently uses an image (Image:560175.jpg) which has been tagged with, but was uploaded after May 19, 2005. Such images are supposed to be deleted (See related mail from Jimbo). Please check if the use of image qualifies as fair use and if applicable replace the current tag with one of the fair use tags in conjunction with. --Fritz S. (Talk) 14:32, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Tail number listed as current is longer registered
I just did a check on the FAA site and the tail number N44982 is no longer registered. Does anyone know what this has been changed to? --LoganCale (talk | contribs) 15:34, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

merge from N987SA
(per User:Victor falk The references have to be inlined. --victor falk 19:45, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Additional information
I dont have the time, but this should be mentioned. Also, there is some information at Blackwater Worldwide businesses that should be integrated into this article. - Tmaull (talk) 18:56, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup
It is good that this article is being expanded to cover rendition aircraft in general and not a single mysteriose aircraft, however information is being added haphazerdly. This article needs to be cleaned up to make the article easier to understand, as it is it's more of an extended list of variouse suspected rendition aircraft. (and please be careful to cite sources and maintain neutaral POV.) F-451 (talk) 00:17, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

New section needed on the gatherers of this info
We need a section about the groups and types of people who've been gathering this information. I realize that some of it's reported in newspapers, and the guy who dug it up isn't named, but there must be some groups and activists who'd been dedicated to this stuff. It would be a shame to let these names disappear. Future generations will be curious. -- Randy2063 (talk) 19:18, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Reassigned numbers - Relevance?
The article mentions that one of the registration numbers has been reassigned to a RV-series homebuilt aircraft and even mentions the name and home town of the aircraft owner. Is this information relevant to this article? I doubt that the innocent recipient of a reassigned N-number would want to be associated with the activities discussed in this article.

I suggest that the personal information be deleted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.231.25.43 (talk) 02:43, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

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External links modified
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 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20070927212444/http://www.villagemagazine.ie/article.asp?sid=1&sud=41&aid=787 to http://www.villagemagazine.ie/article.asp?sid=1&sud=41&aid=787

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Original research ++
This article attempts to trace aircraft that have been identified in various sources as being used in the CIA extraordinary rendition program. Much of the information in the article, especially the references to the online FAA registration system, are clearly original research. The editors show no signs of understanding how the system works or the meaning of various changes in registration. In addition, many of the other references in the article are to unsourced claims from non-reliable sources. It needs a thorough trimming to bring it out of the depths of original (and incompetent) research. I am open to RS updates to all of this information, but I'm sorry to say I don't see anyone bothering with this page, which was mostly dates from 2004, 2005, and 2007. Rgr09 (talk) 14:56, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

N221SG
The information in this section either fails verification, is non-RS, or is simply gone from the internet. The FAA registry currently shows that N221SG was indeed a Learjet Model 35A. the tailnumber is currently deregistered, and prior to deregistration was registered to MTEC LLC, not Path as claimed in the article. The article given as a source for the claim that Path was a CIA front gives no sources and no author. Consider this deleted. The English language page from the Copenhagen Post on the specific incident which gave rise this entry is gone, I will check the wayback machine for what I can find. The DR2 article is there in Danish, but gives no sources for any of the information on it. The claims about the Turkish origin of the plane have remained unsourced for 9 years and it is long past time to delete this. The link to a picture of the Learjet 35 is also dead and I don't see the point of it anyway. Deleted as well. Rgr09 (talk) 15:14, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

N987SA
There is no source at all for the claim that the aircraft in this section was used for extraordinary rendition. The sources that do appear in the section are a patchwork of non-RS web post and self-published works. I have simply deleted the entire section. A minimal requirement to put anything back is an RS for the extraordinary rendition claim. Rgr09 (talk) 15:25, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Cia shill — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:E0A:234:1660:31A0:C4BA:B70:523 (talk) 14:11, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Overlap with other articles
Large sections of the article do not deal with specific aircraft at all, but instead are more general coverage of the extraordinary rendition issue. Some of these sections are in fact partially or completely duplicated in the Extraordinary rendition article, such as the entire section on investigation. I suggest that the article on Extraordinary rendition is the appropriate location for general material, and that this article should deal with specific aircraft alleged to have been used in various rendition programs. I have added a hatnote spelling out this difference. Rgr09 (talk) 00:55, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

N900SA
The article originally stated:
 * A McDonnell Douglas DC-9-15 aircraft with the former tail number N900SA (c/n 45775) was involved in drug smuggling and was caught with 5.5 tons of cocaine onboard after landing in Mexico on April 10, 2006. On April 13, 2006, the aircraft was deregistered and sold to an unknown customer in Venezuela. In December 2006, Mexican Newspaper Reforma reported the previously seized aircraft was being operated by the Procuraduría General de la República (PGR) to transport prisoners with extradition charges to the USA under Daniel Cabeza de Vaca and was based in Mexico City  as XC-LJZ.

This is the plane in the article 2006 Mexico DC-9 drug bust. The only information linking this plane to use in rendition cases is apparently two articles in Mexican newspapers stating that the aircraft "was being operated by the Procuraduría General de la República (PGR) to transport prisoners with extradition charges to the USA under Daniel Cabeza de Vaca and was based in Mexico City." PGR is the Office of the Attorney General of Mexico, an office which Cabeza de Vaca held from April 2005 to November 2006. The plane was seized by Mexican authorities after a failed attempt to smuggle over 5 tons of cocaine.

Extradition may be treated as a form of rendition, but I question the value of lumping this aircraft in with the other entries in this article. There is no RS for this plane being alleged to transport prisoners to Guantanamo or any other secret installation. The editor may have connected it with the subject because of a now-deleted post on Daniel Hopsicker's website, definitely a non-reliable source of information. I'll leave the entry in for the time being, not knowing what the Reforma and Palabra articles actually said. They are gone from the Internet and apparently not on Wayback. The title of the Reforma article appears to be mangled; Abel Barajas is a Reforma reporter, but I am unable to fix this without seeing the article. I will make sure that the claims attributed to the articles are spelled out correctly.

The article previously used a template to give current information on the n-number N900SA, but this is misleading and I have removed the template. N-numbers are regularly recycled; this particular number is now being used for a Cessna 208B, not a DC-9. This is disturbing, because it baselessly links the allegation of the DC-9's use in rendition with the current owner of the Cessna. Putting in the serial number (c/n 45775 in this case) is not a reasonable solution to this problem, and is not done regularly throughout the article. The issue has come up more than once in this article; I will take a careful look at this, and I urge others to do the same.

For other information in the section, the claim that "On April 13, 2006, the aircraft was deregistered and sold to an unknown customer in Venezuela" seems to be a misunderstanding of the FAA registry information. The plane was exported to Venezuela earlier in 2006, from where the failed drug run originated. I have therefore deleted this claim. The link to Edinburgh Aviation Consultants (www.edinavtn.co.uk) was apparently intended to prove that the plane used the number XC-LJZ after the Mexican government started using it, but the original link is now gone. I assume that the purpose of adding this information was to help diligent plane spotters keep track of this plane in the future. I don't see why such information should be in a Wikipedia article and have deleted it as well. Rgr09 (talk) 08:44, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

987SA references
Some references for the section on N987SA were put in a separate section without any links to the article. Here they are:


 * Cocaine planes make a "Bogotá Connection" by Bill Conroy, NarcoNews. April 11, 2008.
 * New Document Provides Further Evidence That Owner of Crashed Cocaine Jet Was a U.S. Government Operative by Bill Conroy, Narco News Bulletin. December 1, 2007.
 * Who owned drug plane that crashed in Mexico Jay Root and Kevin G. Hall McClatchy September 27, 2007
 * Was Crashed Gulfstream II Drug Plane Owned By CIA? Aero-News.net. 12 Oct 2007.
 * Jet linked to CIA crashes in Yucatan with drug shipment aboard by Jean-Guy Allard, Granma International. October 5, 2007.
 * Dogging a High-Flying Bird By Bob Norman, Broward Palm Beach New Times. October 11, 2007.

There was a further one in the external links as well:
 * Airliners.net profile of N987SA

First time I've ever seen this in Wikipedia and in my opinion a completely unacceptable practice. What references go where and why? For several of these I have no idea. In any case, the NarcoNews website is non-RS. The McClatchy article should be good, yet it cites Daniel Hopsicker's website for its information. Bob Norman at New Times Broward-Palm Beach mentions CIA, apparently following Hopsicker as well, so no. Jean-Guy Allard writing for Granma, definitely not RS. Aero-news.net is almost nothing but Hopsicker. Baffling, really. The airliners.net picture is long gone, not available at the Wayback Machine due to robots.txt. Total of acceptable references, 0 for 7.

A couple of these references mention an AP story on the Cancun crash. I would be very interested in seeing that. If there are real references for this story, I would be happy to put something back in the article about this plane. Rgr09 (talk) 10:25, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Deleting redundant sections on European investigations
The article on Extraordinary rendition massively reduplicates the section here on European investigations. As I go through these, if I find anything here that is NOT in the [Extraordinary rendition]] article, I will try to move it. If anyone finds anything I removed here and didn't put over there, please reinstate it there.

I have finished this part, deleting sections on investigations in France, Germany, Portugal, Spain, and Ireland. Also deleted the section on Eppeson trip planning investigation, and the top section on European investigations, both of which are in Extraordinary rendition. Rgr09 (talk) 00:27, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

N4476S
This is claimed to be the tail number of a Boeing 737 that previously had the tail number N313P and was used in the rendition of Abdel Hakim Belhaj. None of the information in this section is properly sourced or current; for example, the section gives the current FAA registry information for N4476S, but in fact the number N4476S is no longer assigned to a Boeing 737. The section claims this plane was known as the "Guantanamo Bay express" but there is no source. The section claims that the plane was owned by a Nevada company but the source, a 2004 article by Stephen Grey, does not mention it, etc. I have therefore deleted the section. Rgr09 (talk) 03:14, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

N313P
The section attempts to track both the plane and the N-number after they were dropped. None of this is properly sourced or relevant to the events described in the N313P section and I have deleted it.

Note that at one point the name and address of the poor bastard who got stuck with N313P when it was reassigned were actually in the article. After protest, this description was changed to: "The N313P registration for a Boeing 737 was subsequently cancelled, and it was reassigned to an experimental Van's Aircraft RV-7." Using the N-numbers this way is simply not reasonable. It's like trying to compile an article with license plate numbers of FBI vehicles used for surveillance. Rgr09 (talk) 03:34, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

N596GA/N977GA/N996GA
This section originally included claims that a Gulfstream V with tailnumber N977GA was used in the transport of Whitey Bulger from California to Boston, and also the Abu Hamza group from England to the US. There was no source for these claims so I deleted them. More generally though, this exposes a problem with the overall content of this page. Both of the these cases were standard extraditions that were the subject of extensive legal procedures. These resulted in legal orders for the extraditions to take place. There are thousands of such cases every year all over the world. Assuming a reliable source could be found, are the n-numbers of every plane used in an extradition potential content for this article? The page lead is very vague on this, to say the least. I will consider rewriting the lead to exclude this possibility. The more I look at this page, though, the more I feel that this is not a useful article and would best be merged with the Extraordinary rendition page. Rgr09 (talk) 01:44, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

N221SG
I no longer see sufficient support for keeping this section. Of the two remaining sources on N221SG, both refer to questions from Danish MP Frank Aaen to Danish Transport Minister Flemming Hansen in March 2005 and October 2005. I have found the original question and answer for October, but not for March. The |October TV2 story implies that Aaen asked if N221SG was a CIA transport and Hansen acknowledged that it was, but Flemming's | official response does not support this. The |March 11 Copenhagen Post also does not support the claim either that Aaen asked if N221SG was a CIA transport or that Hansen acknowledged that it was. I have therefore deleted the section. Rgr09 (talk) 01:15, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

N900SA part 2
The most that can be said for this plane, based on the sources that have been used, is that it was used in a drug smuggling flight, seized by the Mexican government, and possibly used by Office of the Attorney General for prisoner transport after that. There is no point in an article that attempts to keep track of every plane in the world that is used for regular, legal government transport of prisoners. I have therefore deleted this section. Rgr09 (talk) 01:54, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

N596GA/N977GA/N996GA, part 2
I've left this in as N596GA, because the Dave Willis story makes a (very weak) connection to extraordinary rendition flights. The section originally claimed that the Gulfstream V in question was reregistered as N977GA then as N996GA. This information is not sourced except for links to the FAA registry database. The database currently has a N996GA, but does not show that this specific plane previously flew with tailnumbers N596GA or N977GA. The registry does not provide this sort of history. Without a source, the claims should be dropped. Rgr09 (talk) 04:45, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

N44982 to 379P
This section originally included several tailnumbers that did not appear in the newspaper and television accounts which otherwise form the basis for the article. The tailnumber which did appear in all the news accounts I have checked was 379P and I have used this for the section title. The other tailnumbers are either unsourced, or credited to the FAA registry, which as noted above does not and cannot document these numbers and changes. I have deleted all of these numbers as unsourced claims or original research. The newspaper stories used are also for the most part gone, but some of them can be found at the Wayback Machine; I will add revised links for these when I have time. Rgr09 (talk) 05:58, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Rzeczpospolita map
The map originally appearing at the top of the article was sourced to, a webpage of the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita. The webpage has an April 2009 story on the investigation into possible rendition flights going to Szymanach (see Olsztyn-Mazury Airport). However there is no trace of the map used in this article on the website. The map itself is thus unsourced, not to mention the unexplained dashed and color coded lines on the map. Given these problems, and the fact that the map is not cited in the text of the article, I have deleted the map and reference. If you have a real source for the map and its markings, please post here. Rgr09 (talk) 15:32, 25 December 2018 (UTC)