Shannon: A Plane Spotter's Diary

clare | anti-war / imperialism | feature Monday April 05, 2004 21:19 by Tim

Buses, Bananas and Rude Anonymous Cops.

While the corporate media froths and sputters over fantasy foreign "armies of anarchists" invading Irish soil and overstretching the "young inexperienced Gardai" a full scale invasion is taking place with the assistance of the government, the Gardai and the airport authorities at Shannon.

Thousands of US troops (and probably munitions) are passing through Shannon every month.

Plane-spotter extraordinaire Tim Hourigan is the only reason that we are aware of this: in this latest report taken from the newswire he details his latest spotting and the petty harrassment of him by a secret police goon and Garda who managed to obtain a banana skin from him. NUJ journalists could learn something about ethics and originality in reporting from Tim.

"Went out to Shannon yesterday following reports of military traffic. Saw plenty, and got a rude visit from a cocky detective.

3 ATA planes carrying troops for the military and 2 USAF Hercules. One had been there since noon on Saturday and the other probably stayed over last night, after depositing a number of passengers."

Shannon Observation report for Sunday 4th April 2004: .

• Arrived by bus 14:10
• Went to PiE warehouse in Ind Estate. Immediately saw dark grey hercules parked in the centre of the airfield facing away from the terminal. It was being guarded by the airport police, the Garda Siochana and an Irish Army jeep with at least 2 soldiers inside. The herc was marked as being US AIR FORCE.
  On the tail was a US flag, beneath that were the letters ANG (standing for Air National Guard) then a horaizontal white band with the word "KENTUCKY" and what I believed to be a small diagram of the state of Kentucky either side of the word, and beneath the white band were the numbers 11233.
• There was an ATA Tristar at the terminal, in the enclosed 'pen' guarded by more cops and airport 'pretend cops'. The ATA Tristar took off from runway 24 at 14:23, then turned left to head East. He made contact with Shannon Departue as "Reach 757" . "Reach" is a call sign used by US military flights.
• At 15:32 another ATA tristar landed on runway 24 and taxied to the enclosed 'pen' at the far end of the terminal. Airport police vehciels and a Shannon catering truck followed it. The catering truck is the big giveaway that there's plenty of troops on board.
• At 15:58 a Blue Ford Focus pulled up next to me, (reg 01-D-71746) and 2 men got out, Sgt Noel McMahon in uniform and wearing a Shannon Airport airfield pass around his neck, and a man in plain clothes who refused to give his name. He was in his late 20s, about 5'8" - 5'10" with short brown hair and brown eyes, average build wearing a dark blue top, and brown chinos (last seen tugging his forelock for the gentry)
  These two 'gents' decided to ask a series of obviously dumb questions:
  "Are you planespotting?"
  "What are you writing in your notebook?"
  "Are you taking photographs?" (with my invisible camera)

  The other bloke wouldn't tell me his name, said that he was a detective and didn't need to be in uniform, and said we were only having a friendly chat so there was no need to tell me his name.

  He then noticed a banana skin on the ground and saw there was some writing on it. It was from a bunch of bananas I had bought some days earlier. Not sure what the writing was, but the cocky detective seized on it like it was some vital evidence. I reached down to pick it up saying I would deposit it somewhere to rot, or if he wanted to take it and dump it for me he was welcome. As I reached for it, he barged me out of the way, stood on it and took the banana skin while Sgt. McMahon noted the time and the 'seizure of evidence'

  The detective then asked me if I was back talking to Conor again as he'd heard a rumour we'd all been arguing.

  I didn't bother to ask him where he got such inaccurate info, but said that he should know better than to depend on rumour.

  Sgt McMahon asked me a number of times again if I had a camera, I ignored him most of the time and then just told him, 'twould be a hard day to hold a camera steady with winds gusting at 18 knots.

  I asked for the detectives name again and made a note in my notebook "refused to give name."

  The Sgt didn't seem to like the fact that I had a notebook with me. They stood around me in silence until I rang a friend on my mobile, and lo and behold the two of them disappeared back into their car.

• At 16:15 I was heading to catch the 16:20 bus home at when I noticed a large white unmarked coach being escorted onto the airfield. There was also a marked increase in the movement of airport police vans etc.
• I decided to check it out and saw another Herc landing.

  The 2nd herc taxied over to the first, and park facing towards the terminal. It was also marked US Air Force, and ANG but was from Michigan and was numbered 21858.

• As I was watching the coach being escorted to the Herc by the FBO van (http://www.fbo.ie) a Garda Squad car (03-D-57283) pulled up. 2 uniformed Gardai were inside, too shy to give their names, but I got one number (CL 238.)
• After a while, the ford focus came back, with our cokcy detective friend asking me if I was getting overtime for this, he assured me he was getting "top rate" himself.
• While two mobile field lights were being assembled in front of the 'Michigan' Herc. The flight crew left the plane and were taken to the terminal in a mini-van, leaving a ground crewman to deal with FBO. Other men the emerged from the plane and got on the large coach (a 50+ seater)
• The Gardai continued to drive up and down past me with increasing frequency.
• At 16:45 another ATA jet landed, this time a twin engine 757, registered N525AT (recently spotted at Dublin airport, see pic from March 20th) http://www.airliners.net/open.file/540475/L/
  
• The ATA 757 went to the 'pen' and parked to the left of the larger ATA tristar. again more APOs, Gardai escorted it as well as a Shannon Catering truck.
• At 16:58 the ATA tristar was pushed back for departure, but then stopped to allow the FBO van to drive out to the Michigan Herc.
• At 17:05 The ATA tristar took off heading 240, but turned left to go east.
• At 17:10 the FBO van escorted the coach to the terminal where approx 15 men got off and entered the terminal.

• At 17:22 they re-emegred. got back on the coach and left the airport. I walked to the road to get a better look. The coach was completely unmarked, reg was 93-KK-1727 (Kavanagh's?) and the passengers were all male, with baseball caps and sunglasses.

  I bumped into another planespotter who confirmed that the Kentucky Herc had been in since the previous day, and told me that the cops had been checking him out. I didn't know him, but he said he'd heard of me.

• At 18:40 the remaining ATA jet took off after being refuelled and taking on water and food for the troops. It used the call sign "Reach 3756".
• A friend came along before I left and took some photos which I hope to put up later. Better quality pic of the Michigan Herc photographed in flight: http://www.airliners.net/open.file/376985/M/