May 28, 2025 • 28 mins
James talks to Gillian Brockell about how she identified the Gulfstream jet that carried migrants to Djibouti and the attempt to stop the flight in Ireland.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Also media. Hi everyone, and welcome to it could happen here.
It's me James today here to bring you more terrible
news about migration and deportation. And I'm joined to share
that terrible news by Gillian Bruckel, a journalist who has
been tracking deportation flights to Djibouti. Hi, Gillian, Hi, how
(00:25):
are you?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
James?
Speaker 1 (00:26):
I'm good. Well, amidst the crumbling of everything, that's wonderful.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Yeah, I mean, this is terrible news, but I'm also
very excited to be in the Cool Zone universe.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
I love all of the shows.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Yeah, welcome, welcome to the called own universe. It's a
Sophie Lichtman comic universe.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Oh my god, such a fangirl.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Okay. The United States government attempted to deport twelve men,
all of whom are Libyan, to Libya on the seventh
of May. Right, it got so far as to them
to the.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Airport right in San Antonio.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
In San Antonio, Texas. And then thanks to a injunction,
a court injunction, those people were not taken to Libya.
Those people were said returned to an intention center, where
as listeners the show will now be aware they were
informed that they were being deported renditioned, howe you want
to say it to South Sudan. This news broke a
(01:28):
couple of days ago, now, I think Tuesday, Tuesday afternoon, Yeah, yeah,
and that was when you were able to begin using
your ocent aviation knowledge looking for like this this flight
right that was taken them to South Sudan, because at
the time the United States government was claiming that the
flight was was classified or like a state secret. And
(01:54):
even in court the judge wasn't aware of the flight
was in the air on the ground, could it turn
around judging the anthony was going to ask you to
turn around? So I wonder if you could like walk
listeners through the time none of this deportation, and then
how you were able to find millions of maybe not million,
thousands of planes in the sky the one that was
(02:15):
taking these people to as it turned out to Djibooty.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Yeah, So I've been a journalist for fifteen years, but
before that, I was a flight attendant and you know,
I'm in av geek in aviation enthusiast the shorthand you know,
the hashtag for that is af geek, And so you know,
I'm always looking at flight Radar twenty four. It's an
app where you can track different aircraft and so when
(02:39):
I heard that the flight might still be in.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
The air, I just thought, I wonder if I can
find it.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
So I went first, I went on to flight Radar
twenty four, and first I looked at all of the
departures out of San Antonio for like the previous twenty
four hours since the previous flight that was supposed to
go to Libya that was stopped, that departed from San Antonio.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
And so I was.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Looking there and you know, didn't see anything. Just commercial flights,
very obviously military flights, and I know they've used military
aircraft sometimes, but I said, I'm not going to try
and touch that right now. I want to see if
it's one of these charter companies, you know, Global x
a Vello, that have been doing these deportation flights.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Can you explain those to people, because I don't think
everyone's aware of those.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
So these are you know, commercial carriers, but they're they're
contracting with DHS to deport people on their aircraft. So
you know, the A three twenty that you take across
the country is sometimes used to deport people to other countries,
and the main companies that are doing that right now
(03:51):
are a Vello, global X. I think Omni does some
of them sometimes. And I should say there are a
lot of people, especially on Blue Sky, a lot of
av geeks who are tracking and cataloging all of these flights.
I wasn't even aware of that community until I started
(04:11):
looking for so I didn't see anything, you know, in
San Antonio, and then I realized, oh, these people had
been transferred to Port Isabelle in the last few weeks,
so they would have departed out of Harlingen Airport, which
is nearby. It's you know, a deep deep South Texas
And so I looked at departures out of harling and
(04:33):
it's a small airport. They have like ten departures a
day and it's generally puddle jumpers from one small Texas
town to another small Texas town, you know. And there
was one global X flight to Miami the day before.
The timeline wasn't exactly right, but I know that DHS,
you know, has been slow to notify attorneys, so I thought, well,
(04:57):
maybe this is the flight. They just didn't tell the
attorneys till the next day. So then I spent way
too much time looking at all of the departures out
of Miami to see if there were any global ex flits.
I saw a few things, but you know, nothing heading
across the Atlantic. And so at that point, flight Radar
(05:19):
twenty four will show you publicly available information on flights.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
It won't show you all flights.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
But there is another you know, for like deep deep
ab geeks, there's another website called ADSB Exchange, and this
is a pool of all feeder data all over the
world of all aircraft in the air that aviation enthusiasts
maintained themselves, and they will have military flights that aren't
(05:50):
going to be on Flight Radar twenty four. They also
have a lot more information about planes that have a
LAD designation, which stands for limited Aviation Data displayed. I
don't know how much you want me to explain about that.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Yeah, explain, explain because I think it's interesting for people.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Sure, So LAD designation is used most often for like
private jet owners, like celebrities and you know, the ultra rich,
And basically it means that they have an extra layer
of privacy for their movements in their private jets. So
if you try and find a specific private jet on
(06:33):
flight radar twenty four, it won't come up. You know.
So like the tail of this plane that did the
Jabooty flight is N five AA eight eight a T.
If you search for that in flight radar twenty four,
you won't see it. Nothing will come up. However, if
you know what you're looking for, if you know, like, oh,
(06:55):
I think the flight is heading to Djibouti right now,
you can see on flight radar twenty five for that,
there's a gulf Stream five had a to Djibooty right now,
but the registration information is obscured.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Okay, you know it's not like that on the ADSB.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
You can you could see it.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah, your filters have a lot more power.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Basically, you know your search terms, they're going to go
around different designations, okay, And so some people hate that.
You know, Taylor Swift had beef with some guy a
couple of years ago because she has a LAD designation
on her private jet. He was using ADSB Exchange to
post her flights, you know, ostensibly for to shame her
(07:34):
for her carbon footprint. But then she like threatened to
sue him, and she was like, I have stalkers, Like
I don't want them.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
To know when I'm landing in Nashville.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
You know, yeah, not going to get into that, but
you know, that's basically the LAD designation, and ADSB doesn't care.
And so I went on ADSB and I said, well,
since I've already seen all the publicly available flights, let
me just look at LAD flights, okay, And so I
set that filter and that took it down to a
(08:05):
couple hundred planes in the air, and I honestly just
got lucky. I just started clicking on planes because I
don't know how to search for all departures out of
one airport on ADSP Exchange. I'm sure AV geeks who
are better at it do, but I just started clicking
on planes and I clicked. I think like the third
plane that I clicked on had taken off out of
(08:25):
Harlingen a couple hours earlier and was over the middle
of the Atlantic, which is not a usual departure for Harlingen.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Right, Yeah, that's quite.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
And so you know, I posted on Blue Sky to
the other AV geeks who were looking for it.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
I think this might be it.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
You know, it's a private jet with a LAD designation
that took off from this very obscure airport and it's
traveling internationally. Nothing else really fit the right, so we
all started looking at it. Another reporter named Jacqueline Sweet.
You know, I looked up the registration. It's registered to
(09:10):
a man named Igor Smirnov, which there are a lot
of Igor Smirnov's.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Yeah, yeah, it's a pretty common name.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
He's not the Chess guy, he's not the Moldovan guy.
He appears to have once owned an airline in his
Pakistan and has been in the US for some time.
So he has, you know, this private jet. And then
Jacqueline Sweet looked up that yes, he has DHS contracts.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Then the other thing was I just googled the tail
number M five eight eight eight. One of the first
things that came up was that this was the private
jet that carried Britney Griner home from Russia when she
had been.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Released in a prisoner swat.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Yeah, and so that, you know, was the thing where
I was like, Okay, this this plane's been used for
like weird government business before. Yeah, Like I think I
think this might be it. Yeah, So that's when I posted.
Once I realized the Britney Grinder thing, then I posted
it and other people, other av geeks were.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Saying, yeah, I think that might be it.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
And then you know, Jacqueline got more info on the
contracts and so this is for about two hours we
watched it and JJ and DC said, I think it's
about to land in Shannon, and you know, soon enough
it descended and landed at Shannon. Yep.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
So Shannon Airport in Ireland.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Is a frequent refueling stop for the US military, and
you know that's something that a lot of Irish people
really fucking hate.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Yeah, not a US base, to be clear, if people.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
On a way, Yeah, it's not a US base. These
are this is US military that are just they're just refueling,
but they're refueling to you know, do a lot of
things that the Irish are not okay with.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
And so there's there's an organization there called Shannon Watch,
who you know, they're watching all these US activities and
you know, pressuring the government to stop this. So you know,
I tried to email them before the plane even landed,
and I don't know if it was user error on
my end or you know, if I don't know why
(11:40):
I didn't work, but they didn't get the message. I
only found that out like half an hour ago. Yeah,
but so I messaged them, and then I like messaged
a couple friends in Ireland, like, hey, wake up, wake up.
You didn't call somebody, you know, but there's two thirty
in the morning.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
I'm glad my friends were asleep.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
And yeah, So I don't know how how much I
wanted to get into my personal hedging or my journey.
But you know, I used to be like a neutral,
objective journalist at the Washington Post for ten years, and
I left a year and a half ago, and I've
been enjoying being an opinionated journalist. I've been writing a book.
(12:27):
But you know, there's a difference between being an opinionated
journalist and actually interfering in a story. Yeah, and so
I kind of hedged for a minute of like should
I should I do anything else? Should I actively participate
in trying to stop this flight?
Speaker 1 (12:45):
You know?
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Am I not going to get a column this job
someday if I do that?
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (12:50):
You know, I'm ashamed to say that, But I have
to tell the truth. That's what I thought. And then
I just decided, you know, screw it, I have to
do the right thing. So I called the Shannon Airport Police.
I called the Shannon Garda. They called the police, the
Garda in Ireland, and I talked to you know whatever
(13:14):
man answered for like a minute, and then he was like,
let me let me, you know, knock you up the chain.
And I was forwarded to someone else, to a woman
who you know. She sounded smart, urgent, interested, It sounded
like she was taking notes. It sounded like she was
taking this seriously. And I was saying, there is a
(13:37):
plane with this tail number that landed fifteen minutes ago
that may have people on board who have been illegally
removed from the United States, who have not consented to
go to their destination, who are being sent to Susudan
(13:59):
when they are not from Sau Sudan, you know. And
I made clear that like, I don't know that this
is the right plane, but I'm pretty sure that it is.
This plane has been used before for US government business.
And I said, I know that our judges' orders don't
matter in your sovereign country, but a judge has said
(14:23):
this is not allowed, and it might be happening. And
I don't know what your human trafficking laws are like,
but you should know that if there are human trafficking
or kidnapping laws in Ireland that might apply to this,
like maybe check the plane. Yeah, and you know, I
(14:45):
didn't record the call and I didn't take notes, but
I do recall her saying that she was trying to
send someone to check the plane, and she was, you know,
taking detailed notes.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
What are their nationalities? How many are are there?
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Yeah, you know, and yes, so you know, the call
lasted thirteen minutes and then I waited, you know, was
talking with the other av geeks on Blue Sky who
were at this point.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
You know, this is around ten pm. It's getting a
little late.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
And then yeah, I don't know what happened, but the
plane taxi to a parking stamp near the terminal for
a while, and I thought, oh, it's been it's been
turned off. It's parked for the night. I don't think
they're going to let him leave.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Yeah, and then the plane took off. It was two
hours after it landed.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Yeah, yeah, and it went to Jabooty where it remains
at a time of recording. Yeah, it's been raised since
you first kind of identified this plane, it's been raised.
I talked to Dallas or like an Irish member of
Parliament raised it today. I saw there was an exchange
(16:04):
about it. I spoke to Paul Murphy, who's the TV
for Dublin's Southwest. Oh, Paul, get me a statement I'm
going to read here. The very least Sierrish government must
do is to inform the US authorities that no more
deportation flights are permitted to use our airspace, in our airports.
We must not facilitate this in humane and illegal deportation policy.
(16:27):
So it does seem like even if nothing was done
in this instance, hopefully this isn't something that will be
able to happen again. I know, as you said, people
have been upset about that use of Shannon. I think
they used Knock Airport as well, like for a long time,
because the US use them a lot in its war
on terror. An Ireland has been a neutral country for
a long time, and that's a feeling that it compromises
(16:49):
that among some people. But this raise is a really
interesting question for those of us who are following the
deportations right, which is like we've been thinking that it
was on military or commercial flights, like you said, but
there's this possibility that these smaller planes are being used
for deportation, and like that's very concerning. It means we
(17:11):
could have missed things absolutely. It also shows the timeline
here is extraordinarily rapid, right from the people being informed
at six pm. I believe it's six pm Pacific. I've
been spending a lot of time on Pacer this week.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Yeah, good old Pacer yep, A.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Lot of the money generated by the adverts in this
show on Pacer. So six thirty five Central time, NM
who is one of the Burmese people in this this
class action lawsuit? Right? So, the lawsuit a number of
people trying to get an attentative restraining order against being Center
South who done now previously Libya? Six thirty five Central Time.
That person's lawyer was told that they had an order
(17:52):
of removal at nine am Pacific. The lawyer had scheduled
of video conference eight twenty seven Pacific. They were told
that that person had already been removed. Yeah, so pretty fast,
And like perhaps that's why they're using these like small
(18:12):
can you give an idea of like, I guess a
lot of people wear in a phone and small aircraft,
but these are quite like this isn't a usual thing,
right to be.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
No this is a luxury jet, yeah, that you know
is moonlighting as a prisoner vessel for kidnappers. And I
just I'm so struck by the dichotomy of the luxury
of this vessel transporting them to Hell, to a country
(18:45):
where they do not speak the language, they have no
family or friends, to you know, a prison where people
are being tortured that is about to descend into civil war,
may already be in civil war. I mean, the dicotomy
of that is so strike to me. Yeah, and so perverse.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Yeah, perverse is the right word. It is, like it's uh,
perversely ludicrous. I don't know, Like it's so striking to
me as well that somebody who has the financial means
to own a private luxury jet to find themselves around
the world is also profiting off the rendition of people
who are trying now to plead in Convention against torture, right,
(19:25):
they will be tortured if they are flown via luxury
private jet to South Sudan, And that South Sudanese government
seems to have stated that it would just return them
to their countries from which they have withholding it for
removement in the first place. Is why the US can't
send them to their countries. Right.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
That's why the US hasn't done it, right. It's like,
you know, it's a diplomatic pickle, but like the solution
isn't well, just you know, dump them somewhere else.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Right, yeah, and then have someone else do our daily work,
like send them back.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Right.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
You found these contracts. Do you know how much DHS
is spending like perf light on these things?
Speaker 2 (20:01):
I have no idea.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
I mean that is something that other reporters, I think,
are you know, going to be better sources of that information.
I've really just begun tracking these flights. You know, I
like to track flights all the time, just because I
have ADHD. You know, it's a wonderful activity if you're
neurodivergent to spend some time on ADSP exchange. But like
(20:27):
I said, I was just like, I wonder if I
can find this plane. And I did, And that has
opened up a whole world to me of you know,
really dedicated people. Tom Cartwright is one, and then JJ
and d C is another. He wants to remain anonymous,
who have been tracking these planes for some time, and
(20:50):
I'm really inspired by them and you know, want to
join them. And help them.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
We see a number of issues like that, we can
questions that we can answer with these things. Right, the
United States abording people to Venezuela, but there are lots
of in Venezuela which are under sanctions, right, So like
how is it doing that? Who is it paying to
do that? Like where is our taxpayer money going? How
much is it costing to achieve this rendition of a
dozen people? Right who at the current time of our recording,
(21:30):
which is Thursday afternoon Pacific time, the twenty second of May,
they go. I just checked the pacer again, which is
what I do all day now. And Judge Murphy's most
recent order had clarified that these people would have ten
days to present their reasonable fear right, so to present
(21:52):
their reasonable fear and convention against torture proceedings that they
would be it could face torture right if they were
sent to these these places. If the Department of Homeland
Security determined that they didn't have credible fear, then they
would have fifteen days to again petition for reopening of
their migration case. So that's twenty five days for those
(22:14):
who accounting that these people will presumably now have to
be accommodated in Jubouty. The DHS is claiming that they
can do all these interviews and that when they saystate translators,
like one of them speaks Korent, not a language that
we have. I mean that there are lots of Kren
speaking people in the United States, but it's you know,
it's not language that many immigration lawyers speak. So I'm
guessing there will have to be a translator provided. And
(22:37):
so all that is now happening in Jubouty, and like,
we wouldn't have known that if we hadn't been able
to track these flights, right, And so it's a very
interesting way of approaching this. And I think like increasingly
the government have recently lost a number of fire requests.
I guess, like public records do not move at the
(22:58):
same speed as in news site does. Like I file
a lot of public records requests, most of them I
don't get anything back, the ones.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
That they take like eight years sometimes.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Yeah, literally, Yeah, I mean I have public records requests
that I made under the previous Trump administration that I
believe are still ongoing. Yeah, it's infuriatingly slowly. You have
a right to inspect these records, but you don't have
a right to inspect them in any particular time period.
And so doing this kind of open source tracking offers
(23:29):
us a window into this deportation machine that the government
is building right exactly in cooperation with the super rich,
like using your taxpayer resources. I would if people are
interested in doing this, like, how would you suggest they
kind of get going? They could explainers out there.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
I mean the first thing I would do is that
I would follow Tom Cartwright and JJ and DC on
Blue Sky. Then you know, get the flight Radar twenty
four app. You can see a lot of the charter
planes on app. Adsp exchange is pretty buggy and hard
to use if you don't have any aviation experience.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
At all, but you know you can learn. Yeah, and
uh yeah, I mean.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Like I said, if you're neuro divergent, this is a
terrific activity to just kind of like massage your brain
and hyper focus, and you know, putting it to good
purpose to maybe witness or maybe even stop some of
these activities from happening, you know, would be great.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Yeah, No, I think that's uh, Like there are countries
which have strong legislation that can possibly prevent these You know,
these either planes transiting their airspace or if they're refueling
there as you as you said in an Ireland like
perhaps prevent these people being renditioned to somewhere where they
might face torture. And I think it's a really valuable
(24:52):
absolutely thing to try, Like we should try whatever we
can right now.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Yeah, and I mean now that Ireland knows this is happening.
You know, I don't know what happened with the Garda
on Tuesday night early Wednesday morning. I don't know if
they were able to board the plane, if they tried
to stop it and couldn't.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
I have no idea.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Yeah, now that they know this is happening, maybe they
can look a little bit deeper into their laws and
regulations and find a justification so that if this happens again,
they can be prepared to respond. You know, I know
that the Irish are exemplars in human rights, and so
(25:35):
you know, if anybody is going to do something, it
might be them.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Yeah, yeah, I know. Artie and now camped out at
the airport wing for the plane to come back, which yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
I know, I wish they had checked with the av
geeks first, because the plane's not on the way.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Yeah, no it's not.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
It hasn't left.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Look at the coat proceedings. It's going to be three weeks.
But yeah, it's great. You've made this an issue there,
which I think, Yeah, it helps, Like all this stuff
makes a difference.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
I mean, I just I want the Irish people to realize,
because none of their lawmakers have said it yet, that
Irish authorities knew when the plane was on the ground
at Shannon that there were people who are possibly being
illegally detained on this specific airplane.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
I just want them to know that. Yeah, yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
And I'm I hear that their public information laws are
also not great. But the police there recorded the call,
so there's a recording somewhere if they can find it.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Right, I guess I can't find anyone who can answer
the satisfactory the question of like whose jurisdiction the plane
is under?
Speaker 3 (26:44):
Yeah, I mean, and it really depends too, like was
the plane parked in the international transit area? Was it
in a place where you know, the guard I didn't
even have authority, I have no idea, you know.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Yeah, these are real questions we can now ask because
we know right that it was there. And I think
that's very valuable. Glean where can people follow your work? Said?
You published this on your ghost newsletter first.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Right, Yeah, I'm writing a book, so I post extremely sporadically,
but I do have a ghost newsletter. It's hard g
History because it's hard. G Gillian Hard, Ghistory dot ghost
dot io. And then I'm on Blue Sky at g
Brackel Nice.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Do you want to plug your book where you have
the opportunity.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
I mean, there's not like a you know, pre order links.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
I'm very much still writing it, but you know, my
agent will be mad at me for saying this. The
working title is people didn't know what was wrong back then,
the lie at the heart of American History.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
I will look forward to reading that.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Thank you. Thanks for having me, James, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Polsonmedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
now find sources for It Could Happen here listed directly
in episode descriptions.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Thanks for listening.
Also media. Hi everyone, and welcome to it could happen here.
It's me James today here to bring you more terrible
news about migration and deportation. And I'm joined to share
that terrible news by Gillian Bruckel, a journalist who has
been tracking deportation flights to Djibouti. Hi, Gillian, Hi, how
(00:25):
are you?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
James?
Speaker 1 (00:26):
I'm good. Well, amidst the crumbling of everything, that's wonderful.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Yeah, I mean, this is terrible news, but I'm also
very excited to be in the Cool Zone universe.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
I love all of the shows.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Yeah, welcome, welcome to the called own universe. It's a
Sophie Lichtman comic universe.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Oh my god, such a fangirl.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Okay. The United States government attempted to deport twelve men,
all of whom are Libyan, to Libya on the seventh
of May. Right, it got so far as to them
to the.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Airport right in San Antonio.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
In San Antonio, Texas. And then thanks to a injunction,
a court injunction, those people were not taken to Libya.
Those people were said returned to an intention center, where
as listeners the show will now be aware they were
informed that they were being deported renditioned, howe you want
to say it to South Sudan. This news broke a
(01:28):
couple of days ago, now, I think Tuesday, Tuesday afternoon, Yeah, yeah,
and that was when you were able to begin using
your ocent aviation knowledge looking for like this this flight
right that was taken them to South Sudan, because at
the time the United States government was claiming that the
flight was was classified or like a state secret. And
(01:54):
even in court the judge wasn't aware of the flight
was in the air on the ground, could it turn
around judging the anthony was going to ask you to
turn around? So I wonder if you could like walk
listeners through the time none of this deportation, and then
how you were able to find millions of maybe not million,
thousands of planes in the sky the one that was
(02:15):
taking these people to as it turned out to Djibooty.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Yeah, So I've been a journalist for fifteen years, but
before that, I was a flight attendant and you know,
I'm in av geek in aviation enthusiast the shorthand you know,
the hashtag for that is af geek, And so you know,
I'm always looking at flight Radar twenty four. It's an
app where you can track different aircraft and so when
(02:39):
I heard that the flight might still be in.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
The air, I just thought, I wonder if I can
find it.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
So I went first, I went on to flight Radar
twenty four, and first I looked at all of the
departures out of San Antonio for like the previous twenty
four hours since the previous flight that was supposed to
go to Libya that was stopped, that departed from San Antonio.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
And so I was.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Looking there and you know, didn't see anything. Just commercial flights,
very obviously military flights, and I know they've used military
aircraft sometimes, but I said, I'm not going to try
and touch that right now. I want to see if
it's one of these charter companies, you know, Global x
a Vello, that have been doing these deportation flights.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Can you explain those to people, because I don't think
everyone's aware of those.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
So these are you know, commercial carriers, but they're they're
contracting with DHS to deport people on their aircraft. So
you know, the A three twenty that you take across
the country is sometimes used to deport people to other countries,
and the main companies that are doing that right now
(03:51):
are a Vello, global X. I think Omni does some
of them sometimes. And I should say there are a
lot of people, especially on Blue Sky, a lot of
av geeks who are tracking and cataloging all of these flights.
I wasn't even aware of that community until I started
(04:11):
looking for so I didn't see anything, you know, in
San Antonio, and then I realized, oh, these people had
been transferred to Port Isabelle in the last few weeks,
so they would have departed out of Harlingen Airport, which
is nearby. It's you know, a deep deep South Texas
And so I looked at departures out of harling and
(04:33):
it's a small airport. They have like ten departures a
day and it's generally puddle jumpers from one small Texas
town to another small Texas town, you know. And there
was one global X flight to Miami the day before.
The timeline wasn't exactly right, but I know that DHS,
you know, has been slow to notify attorneys, so I thought, well,
(04:57):
maybe this is the flight. They just didn't tell the
attorneys till the next day. So then I spent way
too much time looking at all of the departures out
of Miami to see if there were any global ex flits.
I saw a few things, but you know, nothing heading
across the Atlantic. And so at that point, flight Radar
(05:19):
twenty four will show you publicly available information on flights.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
It won't show you all flights.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
But there is another you know, for like deep deep
ab geeks, there's another website called ADSB Exchange, and this
is a pool of all feeder data all over the
world of all aircraft in the air that aviation enthusiasts
maintained themselves, and they will have military flights that aren't
(05:50):
going to be on Flight Radar twenty four. They also
have a lot more information about planes that have a
LAD designation, which stands for limited Aviation Data displayed. I
don't know how much you want me to explain about that.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Yeah, explain, explain because I think it's interesting for people.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Sure, So LAD designation is used most often for like
private jet owners, like celebrities and you know, the ultra rich,
And basically it means that they have an extra layer
of privacy for their movements in their private jets. So
if you try and find a specific private jet on
(06:33):
flight radar twenty four, it won't come up. You know.
So like the tail of this plane that did the
Jabooty flight is N five AA eight eight a T.
If you search for that in flight radar twenty four,
you won't see it. Nothing will come up. However, if
you know what you're looking for, if you know, like, oh,
(06:55):
I think the flight is heading to Djibouti right now,
you can see on flight radar twenty five for that,
there's a gulf Stream five had a to Djibooty right now,
but the registration information is obscured.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Okay, you know it's not like that on the ADSB.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
You can you could see it.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah, your filters have a lot more power.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Basically, you know your search terms, they're going to go
around different designations, okay, And so some people hate that.
You know, Taylor Swift had beef with some guy a
couple of years ago because she has a LAD designation
on her private jet. He was using ADSB Exchange to
post her flights, you know, ostensibly for to shame her
(07:34):
for her carbon footprint. But then she like threatened to
sue him, and she was like, I have stalkers, Like
I don't want them.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
To know when I'm landing in Nashville.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
You know, yeah, not going to get into that, but
you know, that's basically the LAD designation, and ADSB doesn't care.
And so I went on ADSB and I said, well,
since I've already seen all the publicly available flights, let
me just look at LAD flights, okay, And so I
set that filter and that took it down to a
(08:05):
couple hundred planes in the air, and I honestly just
got lucky. I just started clicking on planes because I
don't know how to search for all departures out of
one airport on ADSP Exchange. I'm sure AV geeks who
are better at it do, but I just started clicking
on planes and I clicked. I think like the third
plane that I clicked on had taken off out of
(08:25):
Harlingen a couple hours earlier and was over the middle
of the Atlantic, which is not a usual departure for Harlingen.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Right, Yeah, that's quite.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
And so you know, I posted on Blue Sky to
the other AV geeks who were looking for it.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
I think this might be it.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
You know, it's a private jet with a LAD designation
that took off from this very obscure airport and it's
traveling internationally. Nothing else really fit the right, so we
all started looking at it. Another reporter named Jacqueline Sweet.
You know, I looked up the registration. It's registered to
(09:10):
a man named Igor Smirnov, which there are a lot
of Igor Smirnov's.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Yeah, yeah, it's a pretty common name.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
He's not the Chess guy, he's not the Moldovan guy.
He appears to have once owned an airline in his
Pakistan and has been in the US for some time.
So he has, you know, this private jet. And then
Jacqueline Sweet looked up that yes, he has DHS contracts.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Then the other thing was I just googled the tail
number M five eight eight eight. One of the first
things that came up was that this was the private
jet that carried Britney Griner home from Russia when she
had been.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Released in a prisoner swat.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Yeah, and so that, you know, was the thing where
I was like, Okay, this this plane's been used for
like weird government business before. Yeah, Like I think I
think this might be it. Yeah, So that's when I posted.
Once I realized the Britney Grinder thing, then I posted
it and other people, other av geeks were.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Saying, yeah, I think that might be it.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
And then you know, Jacqueline got more info on the
contracts and so this is for about two hours we
watched it and JJ and DC said, I think it's
about to land in Shannon, and you know, soon enough
it descended and landed at Shannon. Yep.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
So Shannon Airport in Ireland.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Is a frequent refueling stop for the US military, and
you know that's something that a lot of Irish people
really fucking hate.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Yeah, not a US base, to be clear, if people.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
On a way, Yeah, it's not a US base. These
are this is US military that are just they're just refueling,
but they're refueling to you know, do a lot of
things that the Irish are not okay with.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
And so there's there's an organization there called Shannon Watch,
who you know, they're watching all these US activities and
you know, pressuring the government to stop this. So you know,
I tried to email them before the plane even landed,
and I don't know if it was user error on
my end or you know, if I don't know why
(11:40):
I didn't work, but they didn't get the message. I
only found that out like half an hour ago. Yeah,
but so I messaged them, and then I like messaged
a couple friends in Ireland, like, hey, wake up, wake up.
You didn't call somebody, you know, but there's two thirty
in the morning.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
I'm glad my friends were asleep.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
And yeah, So I don't know how how much I
wanted to get into my personal hedging or my journey.
But you know, I used to be like a neutral,
objective journalist at the Washington Post for ten years, and
I left a year and a half ago, and I've
been enjoying being an opinionated journalist. I've been writing a book.
(12:27):
But you know, there's a difference between being an opinionated
journalist and actually interfering in a story. Yeah, and so
I kind of hedged for a minute of like should
I should I do anything else? Should I actively participate
in trying to stop this flight?
Speaker 1 (12:45):
You know?
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Am I not going to get a column this job
someday if I do that?
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (12:50):
You know, I'm ashamed to say that, But I have
to tell the truth. That's what I thought. And then
I just decided, you know, screw it, I have to
do the right thing. So I called the Shannon Airport Police.
I called the Shannon Garda. They called the police, the
Garda in Ireland, and I talked to you know whatever
(13:14):
man answered for like a minute, and then he was like,
let me let me, you know, knock you up the chain.
And I was forwarded to someone else, to a woman
who you know. She sounded smart, urgent, interested, It sounded
like she was taking notes. It sounded like she was
taking this seriously. And I was saying, there is a
(13:37):
plane with this tail number that landed fifteen minutes ago
that may have people on board who have been illegally
removed from the United States, who have not consented to
go to their destination, who are being sent to Susudan
(13:59):
when they are not from Sau Sudan, you know. And
I made clear that like, I don't know that this
is the right plane, but I'm pretty sure that it is.
This plane has been used before for US government business.
And I said, I know that our judges' orders don't
matter in your sovereign country, but a judge has said
(14:23):
this is not allowed, and it might be happening. And
I don't know what your human trafficking laws are like,
but you should know that if there are human trafficking
or kidnapping laws in Ireland that might apply to this,
like maybe check the plane. Yeah, and you know, I
(14:45):
didn't record the call and I didn't take notes, but
I do recall her saying that she was trying to
send someone to check the plane, and she was, you know,
taking detailed notes.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
What are their nationalities? How many are are there?
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Yeah, you know, and yes, so you know, the call
lasted thirteen minutes and then I waited, you know, was
talking with the other av geeks on Blue Sky who
were at this point.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
You know, this is around ten pm. It's getting a
little late.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
And then yeah, I don't know what happened, but the
plane taxi to a parking stamp near the terminal for
a while, and I thought, oh, it's been it's been
turned off. It's parked for the night. I don't think
they're going to let him leave.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Yeah, and then the plane took off. It was two
hours after it landed.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Yeah, yeah, and it went to Jabooty where it remains
at a time of recording. Yeah, it's been raised since
you first kind of identified this plane, it's been raised.
I talked to Dallas or like an Irish member of
Parliament raised it today. I saw there was an exchange
(16:04):
about it. I spoke to Paul Murphy, who's the TV
for Dublin's Southwest. Oh, Paul, get me a statement I'm
going to read here. The very least Sierrish government must
do is to inform the US authorities that no more
deportation flights are permitted to use our airspace, in our airports.
We must not facilitate this in humane and illegal deportation policy.
(16:27):
So it does seem like even if nothing was done
in this instance, hopefully this isn't something that will be
able to happen again. I know, as you said, people
have been upset about that use of Shannon. I think
they used Knock Airport as well, like for a long time,
because the US use them a lot in its war
on terror. An Ireland has been a neutral country for
a long time, and that's a feeling that it compromises
(16:49):
that among some people. But this raise is a really
interesting question for those of us who are following the
deportations right, which is like we've been thinking that it
was on military or commercial flights, like you said, but
there's this possibility that these smaller planes are being used
for deportation, and like that's very concerning. It means we
(17:11):
could have missed things absolutely. It also shows the timeline
here is extraordinarily rapid, right from the people being informed
at six pm. I believe it's six pm Pacific. I've
been spending a lot of time on Pacer this week.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Yeah, good old Pacer yep, A.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Lot of the money generated by the adverts in this
show on Pacer. So six thirty five Central time, NM
who is one of the Burmese people in this this
class action lawsuit? Right? So, the lawsuit a number of
people trying to get an attentative restraining order against being Center
South who done now previously Libya? Six thirty five Central Time.
That person's lawyer was told that they had an order
(17:52):
of removal at nine am Pacific. The lawyer had scheduled
of video conference eight twenty seven Pacific. They were told
that that person had already been removed. Yeah, so pretty fast,
And like perhaps that's why they're using these like small
(18:12):
can you give an idea of like, I guess a
lot of people wear in a phone and small aircraft,
but these are quite like this isn't a usual thing,
right to be.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
No this is a luxury jet, yeah, that you know
is moonlighting as a prisoner vessel for kidnappers. And I
just I'm so struck by the dichotomy of the luxury
of this vessel transporting them to Hell, to a country
(18:45):
where they do not speak the language, they have no
family or friends, to you know, a prison where people
are being tortured that is about to descend into civil war,
may already be in civil war. I mean, the dicotomy
of that is so strike to me. Yeah, and so perverse.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Yeah, perverse is the right word. It is, like it's uh,
perversely ludicrous. I don't know, Like it's so striking to
me as well that somebody who has the financial means
to own a private luxury jet to find themselves around
the world is also profiting off the rendition of people
who are trying now to plead in Convention against torture, right,
(19:25):
they will be tortured if they are flown via luxury
private jet to South Sudan, And that South Sudanese government
seems to have stated that it would just return them
to their countries from which they have withholding it for
removement in the first place. Is why the US can't
send them to their countries. Right.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
That's why the US hasn't done it, right. It's like,
you know, it's a diplomatic pickle, but like the solution
isn't well, just you know, dump them somewhere else.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Right, yeah, and then have someone else do our daily work,
like send them back.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Right.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
You found these contracts. Do you know how much DHS
is spending like perf light on these things?
Speaker 2 (20:01):
I have no idea.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
I mean that is something that other reporters, I think,
are you know, going to be better sources of that information.
I've really just begun tracking these flights. You know, I
like to track flights all the time, just because I
have ADHD. You know, it's a wonderful activity if you're
neurodivergent to spend some time on ADSP exchange. But like
(20:27):
I said, I was just like, I wonder if I
can find this plane. And I did, And that has
opened up a whole world to me of you know,
really dedicated people. Tom Cartwright is one, and then JJ
and d C is another. He wants to remain anonymous,
who have been tracking these planes for some time, and
(20:50):
I'm really inspired by them and you know, want to
join them. And help them.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
We see a number of issues like that, we can
questions that we can answer with these things. Right, the
United States abording people to Venezuela, but there are lots
of in Venezuela which are under sanctions, right, So like
how is it doing that? Who is it paying to
do that? Like where is our taxpayer money going? How
much is it costing to achieve this rendition of a
dozen people? Right who at the current time of our recording,
(21:30):
which is Thursday afternoon Pacific time, the twenty second of May,
they go. I just checked the pacer again, which is
what I do all day now. And Judge Murphy's most
recent order had clarified that these people would have ten
days to present their reasonable fear right, so to present
(21:52):
their reasonable fear and convention against torture proceedings that they
would be it could face torture right if they were
sent to these these places. If the Department of Homeland
Security determined that they didn't have credible fear, then they
would have fifteen days to again petition for reopening of
their migration case. So that's twenty five days for those
(22:14):
who accounting that these people will presumably now have to
be accommodated in Jubouty. The DHS is claiming that they
can do all these interviews and that when they saystate translators,
like one of them speaks Korent, not a language that
we have. I mean that there are lots of Kren
speaking people in the United States, but it's you know,
it's not language that many immigration lawyers speak. So I'm
guessing there will have to be a translator provided. And
(22:37):
so all that is now happening in Jubouty, and like,
we wouldn't have known that if we hadn't been able
to track these flights, right, And so it's a very
interesting way of approaching this. And I think like increasingly
the government have recently lost a number of fire requests.
I guess, like public records do not move at the
(22:58):
same speed as in news site does. Like I file
a lot of public records requests, most of them I
don't get anything back, the ones.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
That they take like eight years sometimes.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Yeah, literally, Yeah, I mean I have public records requests
that I made under the previous Trump administration that I
believe are still ongoing. Yeah, it's infuriatingly slowly. You have
a right to inspect these records, but you don't have
a right to inspect them in any particular time period.
And so doing this kind of open source tracking offers
(23:29):
us a window into this deportation machine that the government
is building right exactly in cooperation with the super rich,
like using your taxpayer resources. I would if people are
interested in doing this, like, how would you suggest they
kind of get going? They could explainers out there.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
I mean the first thing I would do is that
I would follow Tom Cartwright and JJ and DC on
Blue Sky. Then you know, get the flight Radar twenty
four app. You can see a lot of the charter
planes on app. Adsp exchange is pretty buggy and hard
to use if you don't have any aviation experience.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
At all, but you know you can learn. Yeah, and
uh yeah, I mean.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Like I said, if you're neuro divergent, this is a
terrific activity to just kind of like massage your brain
and hyper focus, and you know, putting it to good
purpose to maybe witness or maybe even stop some of
these activities from happening, you know, would be great.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Yeah, No, I think that's uh, Like there are countries
which have strong legislation that can possibly prevent these You know,
these either planes transiting their airspace or if they're refueling
there as you as you said in an Ireland like
perhaps prevent these people being renditioned to somewhere where they
might face torture. And I think it's a really valuable
(24:52):
absolutely thing to try, Like we should try whatever we
can right now.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Yeah, and I mean now that Ireland knows this is happening.
You know, I don't know what happened with the Garda
on Tuesday night early Wednesday morning. I don't know if
they were able to board the plane, if they tried
to stop it and couldn't.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
I have no idea.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Yeah, now that they know this is happening, maybe they
can look a little bit deeper into their laws and
regulations and find a justification so that if this happens again,
they can be prepared to respond. You know, I know
that the Irish are exemplars in human rights, and so
(25:35):
you know, if anybody is going to do something, it
might be them.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Yeah, yeah, I know. Artie and now camped out at
the airport wing for the plane to come back, which yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
I know, I wish they had checked with the av
geeks first, because the plane's not on the way.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Yeah, no it's not.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
It hasn't left.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Look at the coat proceedings. It's going to be three weeks.
But yeah, it's great. You've made this an issue there,
which I think, Yeah, it helps, Like all this stuff
makes a difference.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
I mean, I just I want the Irish people to realize,
because none of their lawmakers have said it yet, that
Irish authorities knew when the plane was on the ground
at Shannon that there were people who are possibly being
illegally detained on this specific airplane.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
I just want them to know that. Yeah, yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
And I'm I hear that their public information laws are
also not great. But the police there recorded the call,
so there's a recording somewhere if they can find it.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Right, I guess I can't find anyone who can answer
the satisfactory the question of like whose jurisdiction the plane
is under?
Speaker 3 (26:44):
Yeah, I mean, and it really depends too, like was
the plane parked in the international transit area? Was it
in a place where you know, the guard I didn't
even have authority, I have no idea, you know.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Yeah, these are real questions we can now ask because
we know right that it was there. And I think
that's very valuable. Glean where can people follow your work? Said?
You published this on your ghost newsletter first.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Right, Yeah, I'm writing a book, so I post extremely sporadically,
but I do have a ghost newsletter. It's hard g
History because it's hard. G Gillian Hard, Ghistory dot ghost
dot io. And then I'm on Blue Sky at g
Brackel Nice.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Do you want to plug your book where you have
the opportunity.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
I mean, there's not like a you know, pre order links.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
I'm very much still writing it, but you know, my
agent will be mad at me for saying this. The
working title is people didn't know what was wrong back then,
the lie at the heart of American History.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
I will look forward to reading that.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Thank you. Thanks for having me, James, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Polsonmedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
now find sources for It Could Happen here listed directly
in episode descriptions.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Thanks for listening.
It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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