Shannon airport - US military cargo 'spirited away' ?

national | miscellaneous | news report Saturday February 23, 2002 14:28 by McGellan, Joseph - Member of a concerned public conscience

Unmarked aircraft coming and going in the wee hours.

US military cargo makes an emergency landing in a charted 'civilian' cargo jet. Then a charted, unmarked 747 jet arrives and spends a few days sitting on the tarmac on the centre taxiway. The 747 suddenly loads up in the middle of the night and flies away, along with a THIRD unmarked jet which had only arrived 90 minutes earlier. WHAT IS HAPPENING AT SHANNON?

Last week, a DC-10-30F cargo jet operated by World Airways landed at Shannon.
World Airways is currently operating under a $175 million charter contract from the US AIR MOBILITY COMMAND.
Since late September people have seen World airways aricraft transporting uniformed military personnel through shannon in large numbers, just about every day.
Now, we have a cargo jet, which landed reporting fumes in the cabin (according to CLARE FM's website)
But, when 15 emergency vehicles reached the plane
they were met by armed us military personnel.
NOBODY knows what was in it or what would have happened if it had crashed.

In a further twist, the aircraft was then seen on Wednesday parked at the Aer Lingus hangar with the rudder removed from the tailfin. (fumes in the cabin?)

Meanwhile, an unmarked chartered 747-200C (a jumbo jet which can be configured for cargo)
landed at Shannon and was parked away from the terminal on the centre taxiway.
The jet regirstration N506MC identifies it as being operated by Atlas Air, who charter out jets to various customers.

On Thursday night, an bunch of concerned individuals went to the airport to see what was going on. Here is their report.

The World Airways DC-10-30F had been moved to a remote stand, away from the Aer Lingus hangar and the terminal. There was no obvious activity at that aircraft.

There was a lot of activity at the terminal, with Aer Rianta vehicles moving around, and van doing runway inspections.

At approximately 01:35 (Now Friday morning) an unmarked jet, most likely a Lockheed Tristar L-1011 landed at Shannon and proceeded to the terminal.
This aircraft has a white body and blue tail.
It matches an aircraft seen using Shannon at odd hours late last year.

The 747-200C also moved to the terminal where it was loaded.

At 02:35 the 747-200 took off from Shannon, and at about 200 feet all the lights went off.
At first we thought it may have been low cloud but there was no fuzzy glow of muted lights and the lights did not appear to dim, they just disappeared.

At 03:00 the aircraft believed to be a L-1011 took off, less than 90 minutes after it had arrived.

There was no vehicular traffic to or from the terminal other than two cars and a crew transport bus. Nothing to suggest lots of tourists on board.

So, we have a lot of questions and few answers.

What was on board the World Airways DC-10-30F?
Was it dangerous?
Where was it going?
Who would it be used against?
Will some hungry Afghan, Iraqi, Somali peasant be on the receiving end of this secret guarded cargo?

There are conflicting reports on the destination.
First we were told it was bound for Kuwait.
then World Airways said it was going to Cyprus, while Aer Rianta said it was going to Saudi Arabia.
Why don't their stories match?

What was really wrong with the DC-10-30F?
Was the cargo transferred from the DC-10-30F to the 747-200C?

What was contained in the 'L-1011'?
We should note that the 747-200C has plenty of capacity to hold anything that would fill a DC-10-30F so the L-1011 would have had its own separate cargo.

Why is this all being kept so secret?
Offically all that is going on is movement of troops home on leave from Germany (in desert camouflage uniforms) at odd hours.

That's a lot of troops. Can we assume then that the vast deserts of Germany are now completely unguarded by the US military?

It also does not explain the other jets such as the C-20G from the 48 Fleet Logistics Squadron of the US Navy which landed at Shannon before Christmas, and was there at the same time as the HUGE (247 ft long) Lockheed C-5 Galaxy Transporter.

What type of dangers did the cargo pose to Shannon?
Why were 15 emergency vehicles called from Shannon airport, Shannon town, and from Ennis?
If the aircraft had overshot the runway, crashed or exploded what would have been the consequences for the local population?

Why is the government pretending nothing is happening?

If anyone else knows anything more, please post it here.

Joe.