Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: July 7, 2008 10:14:37 AM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: "Air Force One" Was Used in Rendition Flights
(The one in the movie by that name, not the President's personal
getaway vehicle.)
Military contractor’s 747 crashes
just before Memorial day
Posted by Pratap Chatterjee on May 25th, 2008
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15054
A Kalitta Air plane en route to Bahrain in the Middle East has
crashed. The Michigan based company has been linked to the CIA
rendition program. It is also the main contractor that flies home
bodies of U.S. soldiers after they are killed in combat in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Ironically the cargo plane crashed the day before “Memorial Day,” a
major U.S. federal holiday that commemorates U.S. men and women who
die while in military service.
Amnesty International has reported that Kalitta Air has been linked
to “covert intelligence and military operations” but unlike other
CIA contractors that appear to be dummy companies run by fictitious
individuals, it was founded by a Conrad Kalitta, a retired U.S. drag
racing driver.
Kalitta first entered the freight business in 1967 when he started
ferrying car parts in a Cessna 310. In November 2000, Kalitta Air,
started running domestic and international scheduled or on-demand
cargo service and support for the Pentagon’s Air Mobility Command
based at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois.
Shortly before the invasion of Iraq, Kalitta started up a scheduled
cargo service to Europe and in 2005 the company won a part of a $1.2
billion dollar contract to provide airlift services to the Air
Mobility Command.
On Sunday, a 25 year old Boeing 747 Kalitta jet, N704CK, crashed on
take-off from Brussels airport. The specific plane is one of four of
the company’s 747-200F’s and it regularly flies on Kalitta’s
European cargo service to New York and Chicago, according to the
company’s web schedule.
The plane broke in half and Belgian firefighters, who rushed to the
scene, coated the wings of the plane with special fire retardant
foam as a precaution because the plane was still full of jet fuel.
The five people on board were slightly injured although none were
killed. The plane was carrying 76 tonnes of cargo, half of which
Belgian media reported to be mail. Details of the remaining cargo
were not revealed.
Back in the U.S., the Wilmington News-Journal reported that the
company planes were awaiting Monday’s commemoration ceremonies.
“Along Delaware 1 near a busy Dover Air Force Base, travelers could
catch glimpses in the distance of the original reason for Memorial
Day. White, corporate-size jets owned by Kalitta Air waited in the
sun to ferry home fallen troops whose final journey passes through
the large military mortuary at Dover.”
(The company also leased one of its 747s to a Columbia Pictures film
named “Air Force One,” a 1997 suspense thriller about the hijacking
of the U.S. president's plane. The film starred Harrison Ford, Gary
Oldman and Glenn Close.)
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