David Hicks was flown back to Australia on a Gulfstream G550 jet chartered, according to media reports, from Sydney-based firm called Adagold Aviation. But who owns the jet?

Crikey actually dipped into the story at the start of the week in Blogwatch, when we linked to this story in the Hyperidian Bannerman blog:

Couldn’t resist the opportunity to see just who owns this aircraft. Oh, by the way, it’s the one which flew David Hicks home from the Cuban hell-hole he’s been held in for the past 5 years.

Previously registered as N592GA and before that VP-CVI, this 1999 vintage Gulfstream V, serial number 592, has quite literally been around the world quite a few times. One only needs search through Airliners_dot_net; FlightAware_dot_com; or Jetphotos_dot_net to find this out. Whether or not Time Works Leasing LLC is a CIA front company is unknown as no information exists on the internet regarding Time Works Leasing LLC. Strange, given that an aircraft leasing company should at least show up in flight plan lodgements or registered lease agreements. N90AM isn’t listed in Stephen Grey’s published records of known flights and aircraft used as noted in his book, Ghost Flight. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I’d be quite comfortable declaring Time Works Leasing LLC to be another CIA front company, especially given the predilection for spur-of-the-moment flights of people into and out of places like Guantanamo Bay to be undertaken on Gulfstream V aircraft.

There’s a little more information that probably makes sense to aviation tragics at another blog, Alius Locus, Alius Mihi (Other Place, Other Me, in case you don’t know your Latin):

N90AM

Strange title? It’s the registration of the Gulfstream V private charter aircraft which brought David Hicks home yesterday. Look it up on airliners_dot_net and you’ll find this plane popping up in some very out-of-the-way places. In fact, since it rolled off the production line in 1999, serial number 592 (it’s original registration was N592GA) has undoubtedly flown the globe many, many times.

The aircraft is owned by an anonymous limited liability company by the name of Time Works Leasing LLC, of which no detail whatsoever is available on a Google. The aircraft doesn’t appear on lists of CIA aircraft involved in “special rendition” flights as noted in Stephen Grey’s book Ghost Plane but that’s not to say it’s not a CIA aircraft. It just doesn’t appear on those lists. I’d suggest that any aircraft chartered to fly people into or out of Guantanamo Bay has to have a connection to the American intelligence agencies of some kind. What makes me suspicious of the ownership is the response gained from a tracking request to FlightAware on the registration number:

TIME WORKS LEASING LLC (TETERBORO NJ)
This flight is not available for tracking per request from the owner/operator.

If you’re a plane nut, as I am, then you’ll know what that infers, as all aircraft are trackable through their progressive Sqwark idents, their GPS transponders and ground-based ACARS repeaters.

This leads us straight up the grassy knoll, so Crikey put in a call to the office of Attorney-General Philip Ruddock, whose spokesman told Crikey that Adagold was a flight broker. “I don’t believe they own the aircraft.”

Asked if they knew who owned the plane, the spokesman replied, “No, I don’t”.

And when asked if they released the information that Adagold had provided the service, they said, “No”. So we called Adagold. When asked about the aircraft, spokesman Mark Diaz told Crikey: “We manage it on behalf of another company.”

Diaz however, refused to identify the company, saying: “They don’t like to have to deal with any calls or inquiries.”

Could it be “The Company”, as the CIA is sometimes called? Up on the knoll the grass is long and green.