In recent weeks some of the world's largest cargo planes have flown from Afghanistan to the US via Shannon. Three Antonov AN-124's, with serial numbers UR-82029, UR-82008 and UR-82007 were almost certainly carrying heavy loads of military equipment, being brought home as the US abandon the Afghan people to the Taliban. Some of them even stayed overnight at Shannon before flying on to Orlando, Florida.
Our friends the Raging Grannies invite everyone who feels as they do (rage, humiliation and emotional abuse) to confront Eamon Ryan, Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, who is allowing young American soldiers to travel through Shannon Airport to fight in wars they know nothing about.
On Wednesday the 7th of July from 12 noon, they will be at the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, Leeson Lane, Dublin 2, DO2 TR60 to do that. Join them if you can for as little or as long as you want.
On Wednesday July 7th Ireland’s Raging Grannies will gather outside the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport to demand that the Minister, Eamon Ryan, stop authorising the daily transit of weapons through Shannon Airport by the US military. They are asking the public to join their colourful protest at the department in Leeson St, Dublin from 12 noon onwards.
The Raging Grannies also plan to make themselves heard at the Department of Foreign Affairs which is authorising the use of Shannon by other US military planes.
Omni Air N234AX US troop carrier arrived at Shannon on Tuesday night (June 29th) at 11pm for refuelling, coming from Al Udeid air base in Qatar and Kuwait in the previous few days. It took off again at 2am on Wednesday morning on its way to Biggs air base in El Paso Texas via Baltimore Washington.
Photo taken at Shannon on a previous refueling stop last year.
You may have seen that on June 7th the U.S. Africa Command began a huge military exercise with NATO which it calls "African Lion 21" . It is described as a multi-domain, multi-component, and multi-national exercise which employ "a full array of mission capabilities with the goal to strengthen interoperability among partner nations and enhance the ability to operate in the African theater of operations". Most of the activities are spread across Morocco, but some are also occurring in Senegal and Tunisia.
African Lion concluded on June 18th. Over 7,000 troops are reported to have taken part.
It looks like Ireland was also taking part. We tracked an Omni Air troop carrier N819AX that made two trips from army bases in the U.S. to Morocco and back, all through Shannon, in the last 2 days, presumably bringing participating troops back from these military exercises.
Sunday June 13th saw us returning to Shannon Airport to recommence our monthly peace vigils. We had around 20 peace activists there, watched by around 20 Gardai.
Inside the airport, security personnel, including an Irish army patrol, protecting three US Marine Corps Hercules KC-130J warplanes that had landed the previous night. They stayed overnight at Shannon, meaning that their crews and military passengers were almost certainly in local hotels for the night.
The peace and human rights group Shannonwatch have called on the Irish government to avoid using the US military to help keep Shannon Airport open as it struggles to remain viable. In light of the recent Aer Lingus announcement that it was closing its passenger operations at Shannon, Shannonwatch call for a development strategy for the airport that does not include a reliance on the transit of foreign troops and their weapons to keep it open.
Today we photographed another US Air Force Hercules EC-130H 'Compass Call' at Shannon. There was one there two weeks ago on May 20th (see our report here), it had call sign AXIS12. Today's was AXIS11. It arrived at 10:56 and left again at 13:34. The aircraft registration was 73-1584.
We're back in business, photographing warplanes at Shannon Airport!
The most notable or notorious one today was this US Air Force C32B, registration 00-9001. It is one of two such planes operated by the 486th Flight Test Squadron out of Eglin Air Base in Florida and also Joint Base McGuire in New Jersey. It was using call sign KAPPA77, and had recently been in Oslo and Athens. It also passed thorough Shannon around midnight on 20th/21st May.
In Ireland many young drivers have been justifiably prosecuted for joyriding offences under the Road Traffic Act. On Tuesday 18th May we had a form of joyriding not seen before in Ireland, but there is unlikely to be any prosecution.
The joyriding was in the skies over Ireland, sometimes at heights of close to 3,000 feet. A US Air Force pilot in charge a massive C17A Globemaster III aircraft took what appears to be an unscheduled sightseeing flight path along by the Cliffs of Moher and over Galway Bay, before heading inland over Longford at a level of 8,000 feet and lower. It then flew on to Casement Aerodrome where it landed. The pilot informed Air Traffic Control that: “I am a native of Longford, Ireland and so we are just giving everybody out here a little hello from us."
