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Planes Following Charlie or Erika

This page is the hub for the single biggest allegation in the aircraft angle of the case: that one or more aircraft did not merely happen to be near Utah Valley University on September 10, 2025, but had been shadowing Charlie Kirk, Erika Kirk, and Turning Point USA (TPUSA) events for years — and that the pattern tightened in the two months before the assassination. The headline number, attributed to Candace Owens and amplified by independent flight trackers, is that Israel/Egyptian government jets logged up to 73 overlaps with Erika Kirk's travel and roughly 23 with Charlie Kirk. Every figure on this page is a researcher claim built on public ADS-B data, not a confirmed record, and the most prominent counterarguments are laid out in full below.

The core claim​

According to Candace Owens, two Israel/Egyptian Air Force VIP jets — the "yellow plane" SU-BTT (a Dassault Falcon 7X) and the "blue plane" SU-BND (a Gulfstream) — repeatedly appeared near the Kirks' locations and near TPUSA events over a period researchers describe as roughly 2022 through September 2025. One widely shared post framed it as "72 times those exact planes followed Erika Kirk… that is statistically near impossible without intent." The investigation file records the same allegation tersely: "Egyptian Planes had 73 overlaps with Erika. Only ~23 with Charlie."

The claim is that this is not coincidence but tasking — that foreign aircraft were positioned to track the Kirk family and TPUSA's movements, and that this surveillance ran right up to the day Charlie Kirk was killed. Some posters note the overlaps begin around 2022, which they say aligns with the Kirk marriage timeline, and that several overlaps involve international / overseas legs alongside the Kirks rather than only domestic stops. The same researchers argue the Israel/Egyptian jets regularly flew in and out of Israel between these overlaps — the thread followed in detail on the Israel Planes page.

The overlap counts — and why they disagree​

The "tracking" tally is the most cited and most disputed figure in the whole aircraft investigation. The exact number changes depending on which researcher and which post you read:

  • 73 / ~23 — The headline split: roughly 73 documented overlaps near Erika Kirk and about 23 near Charlie Kirk, attributed to Candace Owens's team, across U.S. cities including Omaha, Wichita, and Provo, plus domestic and international legs.
  • 72, 70+, 68 — Different X posts cite 72, "70+", or 68 Erika-Kirk overlaps for the lead jets. The inconsistency between counts is itself part of the dispute.
  • 68 / 29 (dual-plane count) — A separate tally claims the blue (SU-BND) and yellow (SU-BTT) jets together overlapped Erika Kirk's locations 68 times between 2022 and September 2025 — including overseas trips — of which 29 also coincided with Charlie Kirk's location. This 68/29 figure is not reconciled with the 73/23 tally; both are independent researchers' numbers.
  • Geographic clustering — One analysis cited by researchers concentrates the U.S. overlaps in five states: Missouri, Delaware, Utah, Nebraska, and Kansas. This clustering is offered as supporting evidence and has not been independently verified.

These are trackers' allegations, not established fact. They rest on amateur readings of public flight-radar history, and — as the counterarguments below show — several specific dates have been challenged.

The TPUSA-event tie and the two-month window​

Researchers connect the overlaps specifically to TPUSA programming, not just to the Kirks' personal travel. The flight-log thread that introduced SU-BTU summarized its 2025 movements as "multiple NE/UT hops tied to TPUSA Faith tours" (the researcher's characterization, not a confirmed itinerary). The Israel/Egyptian Plane Armada reporting likewise ties the spring-2025 Provo legs to Kirk's Midwest push and the recurring Northeast-to-Utah hops to TPUSA Faith-tour stops.

The two months before September 10, 2025 are the tightest part of the timeline. The lead jets are reported around Provo and TPUSA stops through the summer, and the fleet's presence peaks in early September: SU-BTT landed at Provo on September 4, 2025 — six days before the assassination — and departed the morning of September 10, while SU-BND sat at Provo with its transponder on but no takeoff at the moment of the shooting before leaving on September 13. Because TPUSA's calendar of campus and faith-tour events ran continuously through that window, any flight overlap "near a TPUSA event" in the two months prior falls inside this same period.

The planes named in the shadowing claim​

The tail numbers below are the aircraft researchers have attached to the "following Charlie or Erika" pattern. The first group is the alleged surveillance fleet; the second group is the Kirk party's own travel; each links to its full page.

Tail #Type / RoleRole in the shadowing claim
SU-BTTIsrael/Egyptian Falcon 7X ("yellow plane")Lead jet in the 73-overlap claim; Sep 4→10 Provo presence; morning departure on the day of the shooting
SU-BNDIsrael/Egyptian Gulfstream ("blue plane")Second lead jet in the 73/68 overlap tallies; parked months at Provo, transponder on, no takeoff at the moment of the shooting
SU-BTUIsrael/Egyptian Falcon 7X"Multiple NE/UT hops tied to TPUSA Faith tours"; part of the five-plane armada
SU-BTVIsrael/Egyptian Falcon 7XRecurring 2025 Provo legs clustering pre-September; armada member
SU-BGMIsrael/Egyptian Gulfstream IVSpring-2025 "swarm" during Kirk's Midwest tour; fifth armada tail
T7ELL, EJM36Additional flagged foreign tailsNamed in a later thread as two more aircraft beyond the five-plane armada
N102DZKirk-associated jetThe plane associated with Charlie Kirk, and reportedly Erika, that anchors the day's timeline
N560TWCessna Citation XLSFlagged by Candace Owens; Sep 10 Scottsdale → Provo → Santa Barbara → Scottsdale
Casket FlightC-32A (Air Force Two)Carried Charlie Kirk's casket SLC → Phoenix on Sep 11 with Erika Kirk and family aboard

The surveillance allegation centers on the Israel/Egyptian fleet — the Israel/Egyptian Plane Armada of at least five tails (SU-BTT, SU-BND, SU-BTU, SU-BTV, SU-BGM), plus the two extra flagged tails T7ELL and EJM36. The Kirk-party aircraft (N102DZ, N560TW, the casket flight) appear here because they fix where Charlie and Erika actually were, which is what the overlap counts are measured against.

Counterarguments and fairness​

The shadowing claim is contested, and several of the people closest to the flight data dispute it. These rebuttals are reported here for balance:

  • Erika Kirk's own denial. Erika Kirk has reportedly pushed back on the narrative that the Israel/Egyptian jets shadowed her movements, including stating that she stayed home in Arizona on September 10 rather than traveling. Her denial directly undercuts any "overlap" counted for that date and is reported here as her stated position.
  • Liz Wheeler's methodology challenge. Commentator Liz Wheeler argues the tallies use loose criteria — counting a "match" when an Israel/Egyptian jet was within a broad region (tens of miles) and within a few days of an Erika Kirk location, rather than the same airport on the same day. Per Wheeler, "when you narrow the parameters to Egyptian planes landing on the same day in the same location, the overlap dwindles to one — on 9/10 in Utah."
  • The "5 of 8 are wrong" audit. A reviewer who pulled a year of FlightRadar history said five of the eight overlaps Owens cited were inaccurate — claiming a plane "hadn't even left Egypt" on some listed dates. That reviewer found some entries accurate but could not source others.
  • John Cullen's maintenance-contract explanation. Open-source investigator John Cullen — himself a major figure in the plane investigation — has dismissed a strong assassination link, citing long-standing Falcon and VIP-jet maintenance contracts at Provo dating back to roughly 1999. In his reading, a foreign fleet routing through Provo's Duncan Aviation MRO facility is a routine, decades-old arrangement, not an operation.

In short: the surveillance theory rests on a striking pattern in public data, while the skeptics argue the pattern shrinks dramatically under stricter parameters and is explained by ordinary aircraft maintenance. Both readings are testable only against records that are not yet public.

Open questions​

  1. Do the "73 overlaps" with Erika Kirk survive a strict, same-day / same-location documentary audit?
  2. How are the competing tallies — 73/23, 72, 68/29 — reconciled, and which underlying date list is correct?
  3. If Erika Kirk stayed in Arizona on September 10, which overlap counts depend on her presence in Utah that day?
  4. Does John Cullen's maintenance-contract explanation account for every Israel/Egyptian-jet leg, or are there legs it does not explain?
  5. Who was aboard the lead jets (SU-BTT, SU-BND) on the TPUSA-overlap dates, and do passenger manifests support or refute the tracking claim?

Laws (Charlie Kirk)​

  • The passenger manifests, ADS-B histories, and Provo maintenance work orders needed to settle the "73 overlaps" dispute — and to confirm or refute the shadowing theory against documents rather than screenshots — are exactly the kinds of records the Charlie Kirk Investigation Laws are designed to force into the open.

Note on Registration & Control​

The SU-registered jets discussed on this page carry Egyptian registrations — the SU- prefix is Egypt's national civil registry, so those registrations are real and not in dispute. What is not settled is who ultimately controlled the jets. If Egyptian front companies were registered as their operators, those registrations — Egyptian on paper — may have been arranged on behalf of an intelligence service from another country. That open possibility is why this site labels them "Israel/Egyptian": the label flags the unresolved question of control. It is not a claim that any aircraft was Israeli-registered or Israeli-owned, which the public record does not establish.