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What was the CIA doing near Echo Bay on October 4?

The Canadian Press is distributing a report this afternoon claiming that this DeHavilland DHC-6-300 aircraft, owned by an alleged US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) shell company, was in Sault Ste.
TwinOtter

The Canadian Press is distributing a report this afternoon claiming that this DeHavilland DHC-6-300 aircraft, owned by an alleged US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) shell company, was in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario and nearby Bar River two months ago.

The news agency says it's obtained flight data showing that the 22-seat Twin Otter turboprop flew from Jackson County Airport in Michigan to Sault Ste. Marie (Ontario) Airport in early October.

After a brief stop in the Sault, the mysterious aircraft with tail number N6161Q (and very odd blade-like antennae on the upper fuselage) flew to a tiny airstrip at Bar River, near Echo Bay.

There's no record of the plane ever leaving Bar River.

"I suggest you don't pursue this any further," the wire service was told by a Bar River Airport official who didn't want to be named.

The plane had travelled to Jackson from an airport in Smithfield, North Carolina that the New York Times has claimed is a base for covert air operations.

Plane-spotters claim to have seen the aircraft at the CIA's Camp Peary landing strip in Williamsburg Virginia, the mysterious Desert Rock Airfield in Mercury Nevada, as well as in Iraq and Afghanistan.

When it landed this past summer at Shannon International Airport near Limerick Ireland, local peace activist Tim Hourigan reminded everyone that Shannon Airport had previously been used by small US military planes to transport Al Qaeda suspects to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and other destinations.

To read the wire-service report, please click here.

Learn more about this plane

FAA registration data Claire (Ireland) Champion: Make peace, not war at Shannon Photo taken at Malta Luqa International Airport Where N6161Q was on October 4, 2005 Planespotter report, Shannon, Ireland, August 5, 2005


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