Aero Contractors Ltd., a private charter company based in Smithfield, North Carolina, is said to provide discrete air transport services for the Central Intelligence Agency.

The company was founded in 1979 by the late Jim Rhyne, a former pilot with Air America. The company has 26 planes and 79 employees and operates from the tiny Johnston County Airport.

On May 31, 2005, the New York Times reported that the company was heavily involved in extraordinary rendition,created by the Clinton Administration to transport of terrorism suspects to countries where they can be interrogated to extract information. An Aero Contractors plane was used in the transport of Khalid El-Masri, a German citizen who was pulled from a bus on the Serbia-Macedonia border and held for three weeks. He was drugged and beaten before being flown to Afghanistan on a Boeing Business Jet operated by Aero Contractors. El-Masri was released after five months.^[1]

Aero Corporations allegedly operates under several different shell companies, including Stevens Express Leasing, Inc., Premier Executive Transport Services, Aviation Specialties, Inc., and Devon Holding and Leasing, Inc. ^[2]

A book published in September 2006, Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA Rendition Flights ^[3] includes many details about Aero Contractors' involvement in extraordinary rendition.

Contents 1 Pilots alleged to work for Aero Contractors 2 Links to Air America 3 See also 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Pilots alleged to work for Aero Contractors

• James Kovalesky (alias James Richard Fairing)^[4][5]
• Eric Robert Hume (alias Eric Matthew Fain)^[4][6]
• Harry Kirk Elarbee (alias Kirk James Bird)^[7]
• M Mulcahey

[edit] Links to Air America

There are numerous small links between Aero and Air America. The founder of Aero, Jim Rhyne, was chief pilot for Air America in the 1970s. Jim Rhyne died in early 2000 and there is little written about who is now in charge of operations.

The road on which Aero’s hangar is located is called Charlie Day Memorial Highway. Charlie Day was a mechanic for Air America ^[8]

[edit] See also

• Jeppesen
• Rendition aircraft
• Tepper Aviation

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Youtube video of protest at Aero Contractors, March 18, 2007

Portions of this article were taken from "Aero Contractors Ltd.", at SourceWatch, a wikiproject of the Center for Media & Democracy which is licensed under the GFDL. The list of original authors and the article's edit history can be viewed here.