Shannon military traffic

clare | anti-war / imperialism | news report Saturday August 23, 2003 15:29 by Tim

recent sightings and reports from Shannon

Shannon is STILL being used by the US military, and it's not just returning troops either.
High ranking officials, cargo and who-knows-what else is still coming through for the Pentagon.
Here are some of the more recent sightings.

On Wednesday night I went planespotting with one of the Cork activists.
We picked our spot on the viewing car park on the recently blockaded back road by the runway.
We arrived at about 10pm and saw a WORLD Airways' MD-11 parked in the middle of the airfield.
It had a floodlight shining onto the nose of the aircraft and there was an Airport Police van, and an Army jeep parked beside it.

There was a set of steps leading up to the door, but nobody was getting on or off.

There was little activity around the aircraft other than the changing of security detail. At some times there were 2 Airport Police vans and an army jeep, sometimes, 1 APO van and army jeep and sometimes just the army jeep was visible.

The Airport Police took great interest in us. They drove their vans up to the fence near where we put the tent, and ran the engine and all the flashing lights for ages, sometimes they would just pass by slowly and go on a 20 minute patrol before returning, other times they would stay for over an hour, not saying a word, but parking about 10 ft away running the engine and shining full headlights at the tent.
I could see that in one van the passenger was a member of the Garda Siochana.

The Gardai also came by in squad cars onto the back road. They engaged in the usual pleasantries, names and addresses and what we were doing. I knew the Garda asking the questions and I tried to steer his banter towards the serious matter of the military at the airport. He confirmed that there's still plenty of them coming through. He didn't want to discuss the 'politics of it' as he put it, even though I was discussing the illegality of it, and also the
illegality of any orders he might receive not to act on criminal complaints or arrest the criminals (see Offences against the State Act sect 9 (2) )

after a couple more visits like that, the Gardai left us alone for a while, unlike the ever sociable APOs.


at 05:40 on Thursday morning another military flight came in. It was a US Airforce VIP Transport assigned to Air Mobility Command's 89th Airlift Wing, Andrews Air Force Base, Md.
The aircraft was a VC-9C (a type of DC-9)
It's number was 31683 and it had the presidential livery on it. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA stencilled along the fuselage, and the trademark blue paint job along the half-way line.
These aircraft are for VIPs only, the brass and the suits that send the others off to kill and die.


This aircraft was parked at the west end of the terminal under higher security. It was parked in the area enclosed by a movable fence, known as the 'PEN'. It was watched by Gardai, APOs etc, until it left again at 07:20 heading west.

After packing the tent and moving to another position we saw the WORLD Airways' plane had moved over to the cargo terminal.
We got the details off the fuselage. The registration was N276WA. One of WORLDS MD-11CF aircraft (Covertible Freighter) which can carry 410 passengers or 75,846kgs of cargo depending on configuration of the floor.

The aircraft was fuelled up by TOP Oil, guarded by the airport Police and the Army and the Garda Siochana.

It left at 13:25.
We can't tell you where it went, but here are some phots and reports of some recent sightings of the same plane at other airports on military business.

Shannon (SNN / EINN)
Ireland, June 13, 2003

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/369548/L/

Rome - Fiumicino (Leonardo da Vinci) (FCO / LIRF)
Italy, April 15, 2003

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/353525/L/


Larnaca (LCA/LCLK)
Cyprus, May 4, 2003

N276WA Operating a cargo flight to the Gulf and about to depart on runway 04

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/352556/L/


Atlanta - The William B Hartsfield International (ATL / KATL)
USA - Georgia, March 27, 2003




http://www.worldair.com/md11cf.html

http://www.shannonpeacecamp.org