Desert Rock Airstrip Activity – N8300G Flights

A plane (above) has shown up on flight tracking websites that has been visiting a very interesting and remote airstrip in the Nevada Test Site called Desert Rock Airstrip. This was noted by a user named “gariac” on the ATS website. The NTS is operated by the U.S. Department of Energy and has been used for nuclear testing since the early 1950’s. In 2002, the airstrip was used for a purpose unrelated to nuclear blasts. According to Michael Isikoff and David Corn in their book Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, the Central Intelligence Agency flew anti-Saddam Iraqi exiles to Desert Rock for the purpose of training them in preparation for “conducting covert operations within Iraq as part of a larger effort to overthrow Hussein’s government.” The planned operations, called “Anabasis,” were intended to provoke Hussein into retaliating and giving the United States justification for invading Iraq. Some of the planes that flew into Desert Rock for this operation were also used for “extraordinary rendition” flights according to Trevor Paglen in Blank Spots on the Map: The Dark Geography of the Pentagon’s Secret World. Aircraft registered to Tepper Aviation, Path Corporation, One Leasing, and Premier Executive Transport Services among others showed up at Desert Rock before making appearances in Guantanamo Bay or Kabul with “detainees” aboard.

So Desert Rock Airstrip is a place where “black” stuff happens. Unfortunately, none of that history reveals exactly what N8300G is doing there now. It is registered to Dynamic Avlease, a subsidiary of Dynamic Aviation in Bridgewater, Virginia. A recent article on the Flightglobal website sheds some light on their operations. The plane has made one stop at Creech Air Force Base which is used for drone piloting and training.

Curious.