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Rogue jets licensed to CIA “ghost companies” have been tracked landing at various locations, en-route between the USA, Iraq, Afghanistan and sinister “black prisons” – clandestine interrogation and torture facilities set-up after the “9/11” incidents, in the global “war on terror”.
Consider the whole theme of my website, http://www.secret-bases.co.uk, established in 2003. Then imagine my astonishment in December 2007, when I discovered that some of my favourite research tools – Google Earth and Windows Live Local Bird’s Eye aerial photography – apparently showed rendition operations being carried out at one of the UK’s most important, secure and sensitive military bases! CIA caught on camera?
Be intrigued, amazed, shocked, outraged – all of the above. But above all, be entertained by the power of public domain information, available from open sources! Analyse my research findings and draw your own conclusions! Read on and enjoy!
RAF Northolt in West London, close to Heathrow International Airport, is home to the Queen’s Flight (now known as No. 32 Royal Squadron) and is the official facility used by the Royal Family, the Prime Minister and VIPs within UK Government. It is also used by US Embassy staff (and one assumes by inference, CIA agents).
Northolt has an official listing of Station Flights, including the BAe 146 for Her Majesty the Queen and three Agusta 109E helicopters for VIP travel and “communications” functions. But judging by evidence I found on Google Earth and Bird’s Eye in December 2007, there are many other undisclosed airframes touching down on that tarmac!
As a high security military facility, Northolt has been chosen as the site for consolidating many other functions previously carried out at various sites spread out around London. The Ministry of Defence Estate London (MoDEL) Project is well under way and will ultimately result in many old RAF sites being sold off, with staff relocating to Northolt.Project MoDEL is being run by VSM Estates Limited – a joint venture between VINCI plc and St. Modwen Properties plc.
Another major Northolt redevelopment project is a huge new hangar type building (below) to house the British Forces Post Office (BFPO), which obviously needs to be in a very secure environment. The BFPO project is being run by Bovis Land Lease and will relocate the function from the BFPO’s previous operational facility together with the Defence Courier Service based within Inglis Barracks, Mill Hill in North London, on the edge of the Hertfordshire commuter belt.
In October 2006, security at Northolt was massively upgraded with the installation of a new £1.2 million perimeter fence enhancement. It was supplied by Link Integrated Security Systems Limited based in Chesterfield, UK and ObjectVideo, Inc in Reston, Virginia, on the edge of Washington Dulles International Airport. It utilises sophisticated 24-hour motion detection sensors and video analytics software.
The press release remarks, “ObjectVideo technology also enhances the security of the USAF at Andrews Air Force Base in the United States. Andrews AFB is best known as the airfield used by the President of the United States and home base for his plane, Air Force One. The base also provides air transportation for the Vice President, the Cabinet, Members of Congress, military leaders and receives high-ranking dignitaries from around the world”.
British Forces Post Office (BFPO)
Part of the MoDEL Project for the 21st Century at RAF Northolt
Aerial photo data: www.bing.com/maps – © Microsoft Bing Maps
Aerial photo data: http://www.blomasa.com – © Blom ASA
showing it almost completed – plus new hangars on the South Side
Aerial photo data: www.bing.com/maps – © Microsoft Bing Maps
Aerial photo data: http://www.blomasa.com – © Blom ASA
Aerial photo data: www.bing.com/maps – © Microsoft Bing Maps
Aerial photo data: http://www.blomasa.com – © Blom ASA
RAF Northolt is no stranger to scandal. As revealed in the Sunday Times in July 2006, large quotas of valuable landing slots had been controversially allocated to a private company, Netjets, which specialises in whisking celebrities in and out of London for their media appearances.
These invariably involve the Gulfstream executive jets, so popular with the CIA rendition agents. Could that explain away the suspicious planes on the tarmac caught on camera?
Well, Netjets is actually based over on the north east side of the Aerodrome in Hangar 311. This facility was leased out by the Ministry of Defence back in 2001, as seen in an advertisement placed in Flight International magazine in July of that year (right).
There are quite distinct public and military areas at Northolt Aerodrome. Whilst some Gulfstreams can be seen on the southern apron, associated with the Queen’s Flight and some commercial operations, a much more interesting group of buildings can be spotted in the north west corner.
Some urban scale maps use the label Warehouse Hangar (right) and it is located in a highly secure military area next to the underground fuel depot. Greater detail is revealed on Ordnance Survey mapping at 1:10000 scale. Could this have been converted in recent years to act as a CIA “holding facility”? In March 2006, Richard Norton-Taylor revealed in a Guardian newspaper exposé that the Ministry of Defence had finally admitted to rendition flights “passing through RAF Northolt”, so perhaps we’re onto something.
The Google Earth imagery I present further below is possibly as recent as 2005 or even early 2006, but not 2007 – it doesn’t show any of the MoDEL building projects in progress. However, the Bird’s Eyes are fairly contemporary – if you experiment with multiple angles of views, various other MoDEL construction sites can be found as well as the new BFPO. Crucially, two out of the three brand new white Agusta 109E helicopters from the No. 32 Royal Squadron appear on the Bird’s Eyes. They were delivered to the base by the manufacturers in March 2006 and replaced Twin Squirrels.
On Google Earth, two Gulfstreams can be spotted on the southern apron along with a Cessna Citation – rumoured to be used by US Embassy staff in London and therefore probably CIA too.
Examine that north west corner around the “Warehouse Hangar” on Google Earth. You see a Cessna Citation, (plus a BAe 125) and shuttle coaches for transportation around the airfield. Hop over to Bird’s Eye (obviously filmed at a different time and indeed date) and the shuttle buses are still there. The BAe 125 has gone, but the number of Citations has increased first to two, then to four.
Go back to Google Earth. Anything else of interest? There’s one more vehicle caught on camera – an ambulance. Why would an ambulance be required at a “Warehouse Hangar” or to accompany courtesy buses? Because the staff are so clumsy and prone to serious accidents at all times? Perhaps because rendition “passengers” are routinely drugged in transit? On 4th May 2008, the Mail on Sunday picked up on my observations and featured this article in a major news story regarding the alleged rendition and torture of Binyam Mohamed.
Islanders Ahoy – Spies in the Sky
Just before we leave that north west corner — “Special Projects Area” or “Station Flight Enclave” — there’s one more exciting surprise. With considerable experimentation, I managed to obtain a Bird’s Eye of Northolt’s most elusive and secretive residents – a Britten-Norman Islander, used by the RAF in a classified surveillance, Communications Intelligence (COMINT) and Electronic / Electromagnetic Intelligence (ELINT) counter-terrorism role!
The details in the public domain so far, not surprisingly, have been very sketchy indeed. However, they are regularly seen circling and almost “hovering” over London at all times of the day and night – they can be used a bit like helicopters, as they have very low stall speeds.
They have been spotted in the sky at other locations across the UK at times of major security alerts, for example in July 2005 in Birmingham when the city centre was evacuated just days after the “7/7” London bombings. They are being used to intercept, monitor and interrupt the communications of “individuals deemed to pose a threat to the security of the UK”.
During 2007, plane spotters based near Northolt published pictures on a forum of both Islanders fitted with their high-tech surveillance and communications equipment. The enthusiasts have been using a £380 box of tricks — the Kinetic Avionics SBS-1 Real Time Virtual Radar base station connected to PCs — to track them circling over London at 10,000 feet, the maximum altitude the Islanders can fly at because they are unpressurised.
In December 2007, the official RAF Northolt website was listing two Islanders as part of the Station Flight, but curiously the registration numbers were wrong!
The two numbers – ZH536 and ZF573 – were quoted incorrectly as ZF563 and ZH537 respectively (actual screen capture, right)! Possibly just a simple innocent typographical error by the MoD webmaster, or maybe an attempt to throw inquisitive researchers “off the scent”?
Perhaps the confusion was caused by the addition in April 2008 of a third Islander, this time with the new true number ZH537, which has been spotted regularly flying into RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire.
I have occasionally tracked the Islander spy planes on my own Mode-S transponder radar screen, located within a few miles of Manchester International Airport.
In February 2007 the Mail on Sunday’s Jason Lewis ran an exclusive story detailing the death in 1999 of a London “motorcycle courier driver”.
He had been killed in an apparent straightforward tragic accident involving a car driving into his side and knocking him off. But the “courier” was an undercover MI5 surveillance officer targeting al-Qaeda terrorists (before the wider world had even heard of the name).
The car driver was a mysterious “Arabic looking” man who was taken to Paddington Green high security police station for questioning and later released without charge, never to be seen again. The inquest ruled the death was an accident but case files were permanently sealed under the Official Secrets Act.
The Mail on Sunday article was headlined “Britain’s first victim in the war on terror” and used a photo supplied by the MI5 officer’s grieving parents. It shows their son posing in a flying suit next to an anonymous “military plane”. Take a look at that photo and see if you recognise it.
In August 2008, the Mail on Sunday’s Jason Lewis [ articles ] (at the Sunday Telegraph from November 2010 to March 2013 [ articles ], now a managing director at Kroll offshoot K2 Intelligence) scooped another exclusive.
He detailed for the first time how the Islanders based at Northolt’s Special Operations Area are being used to track suspected Taliban trainees from major UK cities.
This time, a wider clearer version of that MI5 Officer’s portrait was published and showed some very distinctive hangar doors and equally recognisable patterned hardstanding tarmac.
On Saturday 27th September 2008, numerous properties in East London and Essex were raided in an anti-terrorism operation after a publisher’s house in Islington, North London was firebombed. The victim was about to publish a highly controversial book detailing a fictionalised account of the Prophet Mohammed’s early life – The Jewel of Medina. The skies above the raid locations were constantly patrolled by Islanders from Northolt with special eavesdropping equipment attached (exclusively pictured further below).
In February 2010 it was discovered that specially adapted Army Air Corps Gazelle helicopters in camouflage green, complete with pilot voice control software and powerful Nitesun searchlights, had joined the Islanders performing similar spy operations over densely populated areas of Manchester.
In September 2010, it was suggested that the GCHQ expert Gareth Williams – found dead in his London safe house whilst on secondment to MI6 – had worked on interception equipment fitted to the Islander spy planes based at Northolt.
Metropolitan Police’s secret army of spy planes
October 2011 – News Exclusive
In October 2011, Jason Lewis at the Sunday Telegraph used exclusive background research provided by me to expose the Metropolitan Police’s secret army of spy planes – similar to the Northolt Islanders – but operating out of Farnborough and using a fake front company called Nor Leasing using a Mail Boxes Etc shop in a suburban London high street.
April 2014 – Update
The Met Police added another Reims Cessna F406 Caravan II to the fleet of spy planes based at Farnborough in 2013. The two regulars G-TDSA and G-BVJT have now been joined by G-UKAL, but a different front company called Aero Lease UKhas been chosen for the new airframe. Showing that the Met Police haven’t learned from previous lessons, they originally chose to operate from another Mail Boxes shop in Camp Road, Farnborough! The registered address was switched in November 2013 to Building 84 at Cranfield University in Bedfordshire. This building is also the home of CASSIUS — the Cranfield Aerospace Special Services Integrated Unmanned Air System.
spotted above London in June 2011
© Reproduced by special arrangement with the photographer
(both Reims Cessna F406 Caravan II) at Glasgow Airport in March 2014
(Skip to 38:40)
The Metropolitan Police’s Secret Army using the fake front company name “Nor Leasing”
operating out of the Mail Boxes Etc shop in Surbiton, Surrey
Met Police using another fake front company “Aero Lease UK”
operating out of the Mail Boxes Etc shop in Camp Road, Farnborough, Hampshire
Netjet’s base in Hangar 311, left (east)
Aerial photo data: www.bing.com/maps – © Microsoft Bing Maps
Aerial photo data: http://www.blomasa.com – © Blom ASA
Netjet’s base in Hangar 311, right (east)
showing two of the three Agusta 109E helicopters of the Royal Squadron
Aerial photo data: www.bing.com/maps – © Microsoft Bing Maps
Aerial photo data: http://www.blomasa.com – © Blom ASA
Gulfstreams and a Cessna Citation on the southern apron
Aerial photo data: http://www.google.com/earth – © Google Inc
Aerial photo data: http://www.bluesky-world.com – © BlueSky International Limited
BAe 125, Cessna Citation
… plus shuttle coaches and an ambulance on standby
Aerial photo data: http://www.google.com/earth – © Google Inc
Aerial photo data: http://www.bluesky-world.com – © BlueSky International Limited
Close-up of ambulance and two shuttle coaches
(angle reversed for clarity, to show sides of vehicles)
Aerial photo data: http://www.google.com/earth – © Google Inc
Aerial photo data: http://www.bluesky-world.com – © BlueSky International Limited
“Special Projects Area” in the north west corner
Two Cessna Citations, two shuttle coaches but no ambulance
Aerial photo data: www.bing.com/maps – © Microsoft Bing Maps
Aerial photo data: http://www.blomasa.com – © Blom ASA
Aerial photo data: www.bing.com/maps – © Microsoft Bing Maps
Aerial photo data: http://www.blomasa.com – © Blom ASA
“Special Projects Area” in the north west corner
Britten-Norman Islander, either CC.2 (Reg: ZH536) or CC.2A (Reg: ZF573)
on classified counter-terrorism surveillance operations
Are those black vehicles in the car park assigned to CIA and the US Embassy in London?
Aerial photo data: www.bing.com/maps – © Microsoft Bing Maps
Aerial photo data: http://www.blomasa.com – © Blom ASA
during the 2012 London Olympics, with the Islander hangar to the top left
Photo: www.air-britain.com / www.abpic.co.uk
© Adrian M. Balch
Reproduced under licence
posing in front of RAF Northolt’s Special Projects Area hangar
alongside an Islander spy plane
incorporating Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) software
Watching them watching you!
(top) RAF Northolt’s ZH536 in April 2007 with “special add-on kit”
(bottom) Northolt Islander on Saturday 27th September 2008
during the Jewel of Medina terror raids
© Reproduced by special arrangement with the photographers
© Reproduced by special arrangement with the photographer
Click on thumbnail below for Islander CC2 / ZH536 at Leeds-Bradford Airport – May 2006 |
Click on thumbnail below for Islander CC2A / ZF573 at Leeds-Bradford Airport – June 2006 |
Click on thumbnail below for Islander CC2B / ZH537 at RAF Coningsby – May 2008 |
© Harry Morrow – HDM Photography
|
© Harry Morrow – HDM Photography
|
© Shaun Connor
|
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