(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
On May 16, 2002 at 12.06 local time, the Hercules aircraft with the registration number "N8213G" landed at Flesland near Bergen. The plane then came directly from Stephenville in Canada. A little over 31 hours later, on the national day 17 May at 19.19 local time, the plane took off from Flesland and set course for Fairford in Great Britain.
According to Avinor's communications director, Ove Narvesen, “N8213G” landed once in Norway after 1999, and this was in May 2002. Narvesen states that the person who paid for the landing was a company called Jeppesen Dataplan.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that they currently have no information about the landing in May 2002, and that they otherwise have no more information about the planes Ny Tid has written about in recent weeks.
This is a company that has previously also been linked to stopovers in Denmark. According to US media, the company is associated with several CIA missions.
"N8213G" is American, and next to it is clearly "Prescott", a company that according to Ove Narvesen has not been a customer of Avinor. The aircraft type, Hercules L100, is very rarely seen as a private aircraft. There are only a few such private jets. Better known is the military version called the C-130, which is a very common military transport aircraft. The American aircraft factory Lockheed is building these aircraft.
It has not yet been possible to obtain further information on the aircraft's destination with the stopover in Norway in May 2002.
Nordic round trip
"N8213G" has apparently not been on the air since early this year. On January 14, the plane was in both Malaysia and Singapore. January 23 and 24 this year, the plane was in German Frankfurt. Pictures were taken of the plane at these places on the relevant days. One of the flight attendants at Supang airports in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, writes in a comment to the photo he took on January 14, that he wonders why "N8213G" is parked in a remote part of the airport, and not with the other planes.
After landing in Frankfurt on January 24, the aircraft is registered in the US landing logs on fboweb.com a couple of times. Since then it has not been possible to trace.
On May 16, 2003, the plane landed in rainy weather at the airport in Vanda, just outside the Finnish capital Vanda. When the plane arrived from Frankfurt, the Finnish-Swedish newspaper Borgåbladet reports. The following day, flight attendants at the Arlanda airport in Sweden took a picture of the plane there.
On June 11 of that year, the plane was also perpetuated by photographers at Keflavik Airport in Iceland. Otherwise, there are pictures of the aircraft from a number of the airports that the CIA suspects used for their secret captive transport. Among these we find primarily Luqa in Malta and Frankfurt in Germany. But the aircraft has also landed in Spain, Portugal, Malaysia and in Singapore we can register by following in the footsteps of the flight jets. In addition, the aircraft has visited most of the Nordic countries as well.
Mysterious plane
"N8213G" is considered by a number of sources as a mysterious aircraft. Aviation experts point out that the aircraft can be converted into a flying prison, and that this may well be the case. According to Borgåbladet, the Swedish Hercules expert, Lars Olausson, claims that the serial number for the aircraft "5055" for eleven years was empty in the overviews from Lockheed. Olaussen informs Borgåbladet that until 1996 Lockheed claimed that there were no aircraft with serial numbers 5048, 5055 and 5056.
But it was difficult to keep the planes secret. For as Olaussen says:
- It is not easy to keep a large aircraft secret, and especially not when flying with it.
Therefore, the three planes have been revealed by aviation enthusiasts.
Throughout the Iraq war, the "N8213G" has flown regularly from the countries around Iraq to the United States via either the Azores or Iceland. Who actually owns the plane is not easy to find out. The Prescott company is officially registered in Great Falls in the US state of Montana. But who is behind the name has not been possible to find out, writes Borgåbladet.
But there are several who have registered and pointed out that the grandfather of US President George W. Bush was called Prescott S. Bush.
New round
Both the suspected CIA aircraft and the CIA prisons in Europe have caused most European countries to react and demand access to what is happening. On Tuesday, the US Secretary of State promised to look into the matter.
The Norwegian government has so far chosen not to question whether the CIA uses Norwegian airports for illegal operations or not. The Foreign Ministry has received guarantees from the US Embassy that the CIA did not use Gardermoen on July 20 this year. What else the CIA should have done in Norway should investigate further.
The development in a number of countries and the Council of Europe's recommendation that all member states should investigate the matter mean that Norway must also re-examine the matter.
The head of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Storting, Olav Akselsen, said last week's Ny Tid that he has asked the political leadership in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to take a new round and investigate allegations that the CIA has used Norwegian airports and Norwegian air territory. Ny Tid wrote on 11 November about an aircraft, a Gulfstream with the characteristic "N50BH", which landed at Gardermoen on 20 July this year. The plane has landed on Guantanamo Bay on several occasions in recent years, and it is linked to the CIA. On 14 October and 11 November, Ny Tid was able to reveal lists of several CIA aircraft that have been in Norwegian airspace one or more times. The Norwegian authorities must not have known whether these planes were in the CIA's service or not in connection with the landing on 20 July or during the overflights. As far as Ny Tid is aware, the Norwegian authorities have not investigated further about "N8213G" and its visit to Norway in 2002.
