THE UK Government is facing accusations of a “cover-up” with spy planes being sent over Gaza following the disappearance of any live transponder data.
Earlier this year it was revealed the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had hired American company Straight Flight Nevada Commercial Leasing LLC to carry out secret spying missions over Gaza for Israel, allegedly due to a shortage of RAF aircraft.
RAF surveillance missions conducted by Shadow R1 planes launched in December 2023 over Gaza stopped at the end of July. They had occurred almost daily for 20 months.
These flights were registered as landing and taking off on commercial flight tracking websites, but the new US plane is on the blocked list, meaning this information is not publicly available.
However, on July 28 independent journalist Matt Kennard, who co-founded Declassified UK, caught one of the US spy planes – registered as N6147U – which had left from RAF Akrotiri flying over Khan Younis for around an hour and a half. The following day, Israeli airstrikes with civilian casualties were reported in the same area.
Prior to this date, between July 20 and 25, the RAF had escorted this plane on missions over Gaza.
Speaking to The National, Kennard explained that since this information came to light, he has not been able to access any transponder data at all for the flight.
This is message you get if you want to know anything about the spy plane Keir Starmer is sending over Gaza for Israel There is a cover-up going on It's likely contracting the flights out to a US company was about concealing the programme. The RAF plane was not on blocked list pic.twitter.com/y39omsr9jb
— Matt Kennard (@kennardmatt) September 11, 2025
Transponder data for the RAF flights had been visible until the planes got about halfway to Gaza.
Kennard told The National he is concerned the switch to the Nevada contractor may be a way for the UK Government to conceal its involvement in the military operation in Gaza.
He said: “I think it was a way for them to conceal the programme because they were coming under increasing heat about it.
“I think the switch to the contractor was about concealing the programme because you can’t track its take-offs and landings or transponder data. It’s completely opaque now.”
Kennard shared the message that pops up when you try and search for data of the plane on Twitter/X which reads: “This aircraft is present on our blocked aircraft list.”
Below this tweet, he has posted an image of the plane stationed at RAF Akrotiri, which he said is visible every night at about this time, but there is no more data that can be accessed about its movements.
The MoD told The Times in August that daily spy flights are continuing.
The MoD contract is with Straight Flight Nevada Commercial Leasing LLC, a subsidiary of the Sierra Nevada Corporation, one of the largest military contractors in the world.
The aircraft, designed for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions, has been used by the US military in Iraq. It is contractor-owned and contractor-operated, which means British military pilots do not fly it.
The flights have been presented as “hostage rescue” spy flights, but there are no hostages remaining in Gaza with British citizenship.
Kennard said when he sought information about the plane when he spotted it flying over Gaza in July, he received no response from the UK Government.
On the UK Government presenting the flights as being about hostage rescue, Kennard said: “I think it's semantic word play by the Government.
“If you look at the operation in Gaza and how Netanyahu talks and other ministers, most of them say ‘return the hostages and this will all be over’. So, the UK Government, I think, is using that phrase because it gets them off the hook.”
An MoD spokesperson said: “The Ministry of Defence has been and is conducting unarmed surveillance flights over Gaza for the sole purpose of locating hostages.
“The UK controls what information is passed to Israeli authorities and only information relating to hostage rescue will be passed to the relevant authority.”
