The "black" USAF C-32B….Live on Flightradar24

May 8, 2011 Military Aviation

David Cenciotti

One or two days ago, I read that Flightradar24.com had added a new feeder in Washington DC. So, on Sunday May 08, 2011 at 19.50 GMT I thought it would be nice to try to see which kind of traffic crosses the airspace in the DC area. As soon as I moved the cursor on the East Coast of the CONUS I noticed an aircraft showing the “No Callsign” label. I clicked on it and what I saw really struck me:

The aircraft broadcasting its position, serial, speed, altitute, etc. to everyone was the famous C-32B serialled 00-9001 belonging to the 227th SOF based at McGuire Air Force Base, N.J. This is considered a “black” USAF plane as it is operated by the Department of Homeland Security and US Foreign Emergency Support Team (FEST) and it usually appears in the most unusual locations all around the world. Aircraft spotters have been trying to track its movements and they often report this and few other C-32Bs (B757s) of the Air Force Special Operations Command using bogus serial numbers and always changing Hex codes. Don’t you believe it is somehow weird that such elusive aircraft, deploying US teams in response to terrorist attacks or (as someone speculated) to transport prisoners, was transmitting full ADS-B over the US?

About David Cenciotti

David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.

Ronald Elzenga says:

May 8, 2011 at 10:04 PM

Maybe terrorists use Flightradar24 too for making their plans? and the US government want to show them they are alert and active in their security operations? just a guess.. Or is it normal to do so over the US?
avi says:

May 8, 2011 at 11:15 PM

by looking at the playback feature on FR24 you can see the USAF “black” 757 was picked up 10 hours earlier over romania, with what looks like a very short stop in stuttgart
David S. Lott says:

May 18, 2011 at 2:26 AM

“by looking at the playback feature on FR24 you can see the USAF “black” 757 was picked up 10 hours earlier over romania, with what looks like a very short stop in stuttgart”

Damn, that’s foolish.
Agile Eye says:

January 18, 2013 at 12:05 PM

I was at Tribhuvan International Airport, Kathmandu, Nepal when this aircraft (same tail number, and very noticeable due to it’s plain white livery) arrived at about 11:30am local time (05:45am UTC) on Fri 14 Oct 2011. It was later cordoned off and then what appeared to have been local armed guards posted around it. Unknown when it later departed.