Aero Contractors (US)
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Aero Contractors Ltd., a private charter company based in North Carolina, is said to provide discreet 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[1] reported that the company was heavily involved in extraordinary rendition, the transport of terrorism suspects to countries where they can be tortured 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.
A book published in September 2006, Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA Rendition Flights includes many details about Aero Contractors' involvement in extraordinary rendition.
