6 Responses to “MYSTERY: Corporate jet owned by small Utah bank spotted in Iran. Is that Malaysian MH 370 parked next to it? What was this plane carrying? Obama’s gold for safe keeping in case we find one honest judge and he rules against Obama?”

1. ELSIE GANZON
   April 19th, 2014 @ 5:36 am

   Saturday 19 April 2014

   Strikes me as ODD when a such a huge craft is hidden in PLAIN sight . . .

   Consider the fraudulent news reports released to public . . .

   — Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was reported missing 48 HOURS AFTER

   — Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 reportedly was reported EVERYONE DEAD NO SURVIVORS without substantial evidence to show the aircraft, the aircraft debris, the bodies recovered NOTHING

   I SMELL A RAT

2. courage
   April 19th, 2014 @ 9:02 am

   By DREW HINSHAW and TOM MCGINTY CONNECT
   April 18, 2014 4:28 p.m. ET
   ACCRA, Ghana—A U.S.-registered jet that reportedly landed in Iran, sparking a mystery over its intent in the heavily sanctioned country, is operated by a Ghanaian mining contractor, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

   The New York Times NYT -0.36% reported on Friday that a corporate jet with a small U.S. flag was parked in Mehrabad Airport in Tehran, saying that the Bank of Utah was its owner. It also reported the bank acted as a trustee for investors in the plane.

   Documents show that the tiny bank is only holding the jet in trust to “ensure the eligibility of the aircraft for U.S. registration with the Federal Aviation Administration,” according to a contract seen by The Journal.

   The firm operating the plane, according to that contract, is Engineers & Planners Company Ltd.—a Ghanaian contractor whose CEO Ibrahim Mahama is the younger brother of Ghana’s President John Mahama.

   Engineers & Planners, whose website says it services mining companies, didn’t respond immediately to emails and calls to its office phone didn’t connect. It wasn’t clear whether Ghana would be in violation of any Western sanctions against Iran

   The Bank of Utah—which lists only 13 branches on its website—said it “has no operational control, financial exposure and is not a lender” for the jet.

   State Department spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki said Friday that U.S. sanctions regulations “would generally prohibit U.S.-registered aircraft from flying to Iran,” but that it was up to the Treasury Department to determine if violations of sanctions rules had occurred. A Treasury representative said the department doesn’t comment on specific cases.

   No one has accused the bank of violating any U.S. sanctions against Iran in relation to the country’s nuclear program.

   An Iranian aviation official dismissed reports that an American plane landed in Tehran, according to the semiofficial Tehran Times.

   The episode marks another chapter in the storied life of what appears to be the same Challenger 600 jet that has been both celebrated as a symbol of Africa’s new jet setting class and made into a lightning rod for allegations of political extravagance in Ghana.

   Engineers & Planners began operating the plane in June 2012, according to a company statement posted to independent local news website Modern Ghana at the time.

   That was a season of hot politics in Ghana, one of Africa’s most closely-contested democracies. President Mahama was at the time vice president, and the most public face of a party fighting for re-election.

   Radio reports of his brother flying around in a private jet became the subject of a small political dispute in a country where most people are far too poor to afford air travel.

   “We wish to emphatically state that the aircraft has no association direct or indirect with the Vice President, H.E. John Dramani Mahama, who incidentally happens to be the elder brother of our Chief Executive Officer,” said the 2012 company statement.

   Meanwhile, others at the time reveled in the plane’s arrival as testimony to the wealth creeping into this small, West African nation.

   “His private jet is soooooo telling of where we Ghanaians are at right now,” wrote Ghana Rising, a blog that catalogs the country’s growing spending power and haute culture. “Can’t we at least start to celebrate some of the yummy prosperity and stuff going on in our Ghana?”

   https://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304810904579509783211816304?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304810904579509783211816304.html

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   Why nobody knows anything about that mysterious American plane in Iran
   By Tim Fernholz @timfernholz April 18, 2014

   There’s a puzzle in international aviation and diplomatic circles: How did an American jet wind up landing in Iran?
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   A New York Times correspondent snapped a picture of plane N604EP in Tehran Airport, and that’s where the questions started: US companies can’t do business in Iran, and you can’t bring an American-made and registered plane there without specific approval from the government. (Technically, flying a plane to another country could be considered exporting it.) But so far, the officials in charge of enforcing these rules have not commented on the plane’s presence there or whether they are investigating it. Nor has Iran’s diplomatic mission to the United Nations. Update: Iran’s foreign ministry (Persian) now says the plane is owned by Ghana and was ferrying senior government officials to a meeting; the Wall Street Journal reports the plane is owned by a mining company run by the younger brother of Ghana’s president.
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   Conspiracy theories abound, however: A secret diplomatic mission? (Not likely to be so obvious, experts say.) One might assume the same about smugglers evading trade sanctions. Here’s another possibility: Maybe it’s simply a wealthy tourist.
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   One reason we know so little is the opacity of the plane’s ownership: While all US planes must be registered in the Federal Aviation Administration’s database, they are often not registered to their real owners. Some news outlets have written, erroneously, that the Bank of Utah “owns” the plane—and the Times quotes an official at the bank saying he had “no idea” why it was in Iran. In fact, the Bank of Utah is the trustee of the plane, managing it for investors that it has not yet revealed—and may not even know. It’s similar to the way that shell companies are managed by nominee directors on behalf of a hidden beneficial owner.
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   This is a common way to own an aircraft. According to the FAA, the Bank of Utah is the trustee for more than 1,169 aircraft; the Bank of New York is the trustee for five 727s; Delaware firms such as Aircraft Trust and Finance (56 planes) and Corporate Services Corporation (93 planes) do the same. Why? It helps protect the privacy of the kinds of people—celebrities and plutocrats—who can afford to travel by private jet. It’s also a simple way to get around a US law forbidding foreign-registered airplanes from flying within the US (Lufthansa can drop you off at JFK International Airport in New York, but it can’t take you from there to Cleveland).
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   That means foreign owners of private planes need a US trust so that they can register and fly their plane within the US, so the plane in Tehran could actually owned by a non-US citizen or entity. That doesn’t necessarily indicate there’s no violation of US sanctions—a foreign person couldn’t just buy a plane in the US and sell it in Iran, for example—but it does suggest a possible explanation for why it flew there.

   The only organization that has publicly said it is investigating the situation is the Bank of Utah, where an executive told the Times that the bank will resign its trusteeship of the plane if there are signs of illegal activity.

   https://qz.com/200603/why-nobody-knows-anything-about-that-mysterious-american-plane-in-iran/

3. Sandy Beach
   April 19th, 2014 @ 9:50 am

   Update: Iran’s foreign ministry (Persian) now says the plane is owned by Ghana and was ferrying senior government officials to a meeting; the Wall Street Journal reports the plane is owned by a mining company run by the younger brother of Ghana’s president.
   https://qz.com/200603/why-nobody-knows-anything-about-that-mysterious-american-plane-in-iran/

   U.S.-Registered Jet in Iran Is Ghanaian
   Plane That Mysteriously Landed in Heavily Sanctioned Tehran Turns Out Not to Be U.S. Owned
   https://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304810904579509783211816304?mod=WSJ_LatestHeadlines&mg=reno64-wsj&_ga=1.26333886.2035407918.1397924908

   If MH370 was parked next to the N6043EP plane, the New York Times correspondent that took this picture would have reported it. IMO, it would have been more important and much bigger news.

4. Saachi
   April 19th, 2014 @ 10:33 am

   Iran says plane at airport leased to Ghana after U.S.-flagged plane sighting https://article.wn.com/view/2014/04/19/Iran_says_plane_at_airport_leased_to_Ghana_after_USflagged_p_h/

5. courage
   April 19th, 2014 @ 11:22 am

   From an already posted article: …”Presumably because of these uranium deposits, Robert Sogbadjie, the national coordinator of the Ghana Nuclear Power Program Organization (GNPPO), spoke about Ghana producing nuclear energy within 15 years. They also discussed “exporting” their nuclear power, but at the time this was in the context of selling energy over the electrical grid, not giving uranium to Iran. Either way, they were expecting their nuclear energy program to become the “second highest foreign exchange earner” for Ghana. Russia and China were also said to be working with Ghana to set up their nuclear reactor, with both countries interested in “uranium production in third [world] countries” like Ghana.

   https://www.inquisitr.com/1218069/utah-plane-in-iran-used-to-broker-uranium-deal-for-irans-nuclear-weapons-program/)

   ***********

   New article excerpt: NO mention of Uranium.

   …”He recalled that Ghana and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) within the framework in which Iran made available to Ghana a grant for the upgrading of the Iran Clinic in Accra to a polyclinic status.

   The grant was also for the construction of a cultural community centre at Kumbungu and the Iran Hybrid Rice Plantation in Tamale, both in the Northern Region.

   President Mahama said that the driving force behind the Ghana-Iran bilateral relation was a permanent joint commission on cooperation.

   He said the fourth session of the joint commission produced the signing of four agreements relating to the construction of technical and vocational schools, implementation of the automation of digitalization of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) radio and television archives and the lifting of visas on diplomatic and service passport holders.

   He was optimistic that the Iranian business community would take advantage of the prevailing congenial investment and political climate in Ghana to invest in government’s priority areas such as oil and gas expansion and modernization of air and seaports, infrastructural projects, water resources and the expansion and mobilization of electrical transmission systems.

   The Iranian Ambassador to Ghana, Mohammad Soleymani was present in the event…”

   https://www.irna.ir/en/News/81127771/Politic/Iran_reacts_to_news_on_landing_of_American_plane_in_Tehran

6. MichaelN
   April 20th, 2014 @ 2:45 pm

   Seems very odd, that the Malaysian aircraft MH370 was reported to have flown near enough to the US base at Diego Garcia for the US base to be concerned of a possible threat to the extent that the US base would naturally track the MH370’s course and/or warn the MH370 away from the US base, but not a peep from the US base as to the possoble whereabouts of the MH370 aircraft.

   Surely anything in the air anywhere near a US base such as Diego Garcia, would be checked-out and tracked.

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