Revealed: Gaza Spy Flights From UK Base On Cyprus Secretly Shift to Plane Leased by Company with Billions in US Military Contracts
The American leasing company was awarded $472m contract by US Special Operations Command in June and is developing US military’s new long-range spy plane
The Nevada-based firm has also called itself “an established mission partner” of the UK military
Pilot of new US plane forgets to turn off transponder over Gaza, giving first glimpse of flight path of spy flights from RAF Akrotiri on Cyprus
RAF plane escorts new US plane on five apparent training missions over Gaza before flying back to its host base in Lincolnshire, east England
A spy plane leased from a company that works closely with the US military is now flying daily intelligence-gathering flights over Gaza from British territory on Cyprus, Deep Dive can reveal.
Since December 2023, the Royal Air Force (RAF) had been flying the same Beechcraft King Air 350 plane over Gaza and sharing the intelligence with Israel, but now this programme appears to have ceased, and is instead being undertaken by the new US-leased private plane.
The British planes, which are called Shadow R1s in UK service, have flown near-daily from RAF Akrotiri, Britain’s sprawling airbase on Cyprus, for almost the entire duration of Israel’s assault on Gaza.
But the last RAF spy flight over Gaza from Akrotiri was on July 25, within days of the new US plane coming into operation on the same route. During the US plane’s first five trips over Gaza, it was accompanied by the RAF plane in an apparent training exercise.
While the RAF surveillance missions were registered as landing and taking off on commercial flight tracking websites, the new US plane is on the blocked list, meaning this information is not publicly available.
But on 28 July, Deep Dive tracked the new US plane flying for three hours over Khan Younis. The following day, Israeli airstrikes with civilian casualties were reported in the same area.
The new plane belongs to Straight Flight Nevada Commercial Leasing LLC, a company based in Sparks, Nevada, on the west coast of the United States. It is a subsidiary of the larger Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC), which was the 53rd largest military contractor in the world in 2021.
It is unclear if the new plane is being operated by the company itself or if it has been rented by another party. It is possible that it has been leased to the US, Israeli or British militaries - or that it is being operated by the company on behalf of a government or corporation.
The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) refused to provide an on-the-record statement or answer any of Deep Dive’s questions about the new American plane. The US Department of Defense, meanwhile, told Deep Dive to contact the UK MoD. The Sierra Nevada Corporation did not respond to requests for information and comment.
New plane arrives
The new US plane was inactive earlier this year, according to records, but on 10 July it went on a test mission. It took off from Hagerstown Regional Airport, a small airport in Maryland about 70 miles from Washington DC, and the location of Sierra Nevada’s hangar storing its Beechcraft 350s. The test flight included three hours of circling over the borough of Everett in neighbouring state of Pennsylvania, mimicking its eventual flight route over Gaza.
Two days later, on 12 July, it flew to St John’s International Airport in Newfoundland, on the eastern tip of Canada, and the following day it flew to Keflavík Airport, Iceland’s main airport.
Then, on 14 July, it flew on to Palermo Airport on Sicily via an hour stop at Belfast Airport in Northern Ireland, presumably for refuelling. The next day, on 15 July, it arrived at its final destination at RAF Akrotiri on Cyprus.
After 3 days parked at RAF Akrotiri it made its first flight from the base on 18 July, taking off at 3pm and arriving back at base two hours later. Most of the journey involved flying circles off Akrotiri, again simulating the Gaza flights. On 19 July, it was inactive.
On 20 July, it began its daily spying missions over Gaza. For the first 5 days it took off around 2pm and returned six hours later, around 8pm. On these first five flights over Gaza, the US plane was escorted by the RAF Shadow R1 that had been flying over Gaza each day for the previous two weeks.
But four days after its final flight, on July 29, the RAF plane flew from RAF Akrotiri to Bari, Italy, then on to RAF Waddington, the host base for Britain’s fleet of eight Shadow R1s.
For the 20 months of UK spy flights over Gaza for Israel, the planes had turned off their transponder about half way to Gaza so activity over Gaza had stayed secret.
On 28 July, however, the newly-trained US plane took off at 8pm and forgot to turn off its transponder. The flight path of a surveillance flight from RAF Akrotiri was visible for the first time. It shows the plane reaching Gaza at 9pm and circling over southern Gaza for an hour and half, concentrating its surveillance efforts over Khan Younis and surrounding areas.
COCO
Sierra Nevada Corporation operates a “contractor-owned, contractor-operated” (COCO) aircraft programme specifically for surveillance flights, providing aircraft and pilots to clients.
The company says it provides “turnkey aircraft solutions with a fleet of aircraft hosted in our five hangars and certified pilots available to fly within hours’ notice.”
It also says that it “quickly tailors…aircraft to the customers' unique mission needs”, adding that its COCO contracts have been “proven in demanding operational theaters worldwide”.
This opaque system is designed for clients to operate spy planes with limited oversight and accountability.
There is evidence that the US military has leased Sierra Nevada Corporation planes.
In December 2020, a Beechcraft King Air 350 belonging to Straight Flight arrived in Erbil, Iraq, after taking a similar route from Maryland as the plane which arrived at RAF Akrotiri on July 15. It was believed to be operated by US Special Operations Command.
The plane is a so-called Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft and is the same model that the RAF had been using for its surveillance flights. It is equipped with satellite communications and various sensors, including electro-optical and infrared, and can transfer intelligence to the ground in real time.
US military contracts
Sierra Nevada Corporation has worked extensively with the US military to develop its intelligence-gathering capabilities.
In August 2024, Sierra Nevada won a multi-billion dollar Pentagon contract to serve as the lead system integrator for its future long-range spy plane. According to Lt. Gen. Anthony Hale, deputy chief of staff for Army intelligence, the programme is “the centerpiece of the Army’s long-promised aerial [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] transformation strategy.”.
Just before that, SNC had won a $13.1bn contract from the US Air Force to develop its next E-4 "Doomsday" plane, which would be involved in the military's response to a nuclear war. In November 2024, the US Army selected Sierra Nevada to provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft for an ongoing overhaul of its aerial spying and targeting capabilities.
In June 2025, Sierra Nevada was awarded another contract worth $472m from the U.S. Special Operations Command, which oversees clandestine activity, including special reconnaissance.
Video: The new US-leased spy plane, which flew from RAF Akrotiri on 28 July, circles over Khan Younis area for three hours.
Sierra Nevada UK
The chief executive of Sierra Nevada Corporation is Fatih Ozmen, a Turkish-American entrepreneur who says he is committed to “technological innovation in the interest of U.S. national security”.
Ozmen also has interests in Britain. He established Sierra Nevada UK in 2007. One of its founding directors was Robin Southwell, who was at the time chief executive of weapons manufacturer EADS UK (later Airbus).
Ozmen registered another company in Britain in 2018 called Sierra Nevada Mission Systems (SNMS). The managing director of the company is Hywel Baker, a UK military veteran.
Last year, SNMS announced it was part of the consortium which had been awarded the £40m contract to deliver Project Zodiac by the UK Ministry of Defence.
Project Zodiac is a key component of the UK military’s Land ISTAR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition, and Reconnaissance) programme, which is focused on integrating and modernising its intelligence capabilities.
Its aim is to connect “sensors, decision makers and effectors, to enable the deployed force to operate with greater lethality and survivability”.
SNMS said its work “will provide the systems to ingest data from all battlefield sensors and fuse, analyse and distribute the resulting intelligence to battlefield users.” It added that the company was “an established mission partner and ‘go to’ company in the UK”.
 |
|
 | A guest post by
|
Incredible work. Thank you for continuing to expose this appalling work being done by the UK government to support Israel’s Genocide in Gaza. It’s bleak to see but it is so important we know.
I clearly have underestimated the number of psychopaths in the world.