Are extraordinary rendition flights continuing, operated by Blackwater?

A CASA-212 Aviocar, registration number N964BW,
owned by Blackwater, lands at the RAF Mildenhall airbase in
Suffolk, United Kingdom, a week ago Saturday

when i was working for united airlines, i discovered that there's an entire sub-culture out there of "plane-spotters," no doubt genetically linked to that other genre, train-spotters... at heart, i suppose i'm one myself, although not nearly passionate enough to devote any serious time to it... anywayz, plane-spotters around the world have been doing a great service to all of us by identifying, tracking, monitoring, and photographing cia flights... this story would not have surfaced had it not been for their diligent efforts...

from the uk daily mail...

The row over CIA 'torture flights' using British airports has deepened following fresh evidence that a plane repeatedly linked to the controversial programme landed in the UK just days ago.

The plane was logged arriving at RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk last weekend, and watching aviation experts said the aircraft, piloted by crew clad in desert fatigues, was immediately surrounded on the runway by armed American security forces.

Its registration number, clearly visible on the fuselage, identifies it as a plane which the European Parliament says has been involved in 'ghost flights' to smuggle terrorist suspects to shadowy interrogation centres abroad.

Records show the plane is owned by Blackwater USA, a CIA contractor described as "the most secretive and powerful mercenary army on the planet". An eyewitness, who previously worked as an RAF electronic warfare expert, said that as the plane - a CASA-212 Aviocar - taxied to a stop on the runway it was met by a US military Humvee.

The vehicle contained four US security policemen armed with M16 assault rifles, who accompanied the camouflaged crew to the airport terminal.

this comes hard on the heels of last week's report confirming cia secret prisons... equally interesting is that a little digging turned up that the plane is listed in a report provided last november for the european parliament...


With a range of 2,000 miles, the flight was tracked
in U.S. airspace, and then likely refueled in Greenland,
the U.K., Malta, and the near Middle East, before heading
to Afghanistan or Iraq.

A report last November by a European Parliament committee placed the plane - registration number N964BW - on a list of "companies and aircraft used by the CIA for extraordinary rendition flights". The plane was previously registered with the Bolivian army, and has been pictured on the ground in the Afghan capital Kabul within the past year.

The American Federal Aviation Authority lists the plane as being operated by two companies, Aviation World Wide Services and a sister company, Presidential Airways.

The European Parliament report describes these as shell companies operating as subsidiaries of Blackwater USA, "an important contractor for the CIA and the US military" which bases the planes in Malta.

Research by a further group, The American Centre for Media and Democracy, claims that flight-tracking internet technology shows the plane landed at least twice in the first six months of 2006 at Camp Peary, the U.S. naval reservation in Virginia known as The Farm and widely alleged to be a CIA training facility.

Tracking technology shows that the plane was en route from Canada to Greenland two days before it was sighted at Mildenhall: the internet software does not extend beyond American airspace, but the expert explained that its route would be consistent with a refuelling stop in the Arctic - it only has a range of about 2,000 miles - followed by a further refuel in East Anglia, before heading to Malta.

From there it could 'leapfrog' from US bases in the former Soviet states bordering Afghanistan on to Kabul.

i can't imagine anyone so naive as to believe both that the cia secret prisons are not still in operation and that extraordinary rendition is not still underway... such naivete - or deliberate blindness - is equivalent to believing that domestic wiretapping is being conducted through fisa or that bush will dump alberto gonzales... as atrios says, na ga happen...

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