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N1098L Spy Plane

N1098L is a Bombardier Global 6500 business jet operated by LASAI Aviation II LLC, a US Army intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) contractor whose control fell under Leidos in 2021. The aircraft is publicly documented as part of the Army's HADES program (High Accuracy Detection & Exploitation System), which is designed around the Global 6500 airframe and has been written about as a platform for air-launched drones and signals collection. On September 10, 2025 — the day Charlie Kirk was assassinated at Utah Valley University — N1098L flew an unusual low-altitude, low-speed profile near the Orem/UVU corridor, and it has become the single most-discussed aircraft in the citizen investigation. This page lays out what is documented, what is disputed, and what remains an open theory.

Aircraft identification​

  • Tail number: N1098L (previously registered as N911PV)
  • Type: Bombardier Global 6500 (G6500)
  • ICAO hex: A0299E
  • Callsign on Sept 10, 2025: AXLE10 (also rendered AXEL10 in some posts)
  • Program affiliation: US Army HADES (High Accuracy Detection & Exploitation System) ISR — sometimes referenced in the notes alongside the "Athena" program. The investigation notes also tie the aircraft to an AXLE21-style mission designation, framed by some posters as a "training" cover for the ISR tasking.
  • Operator: LASAI Aviation II LLC — a defense contractor specializing in ISR missions for the US Army; control reportedly fell under Leidos in 2021
  • FAA-listed operator address: 10660 Aviation Lane, Manassas, VA 20110 (per FAA registration records cited in the investigation notes)
  • Other reported contractor associations: Citizen investigators have also tied the broader HADES ISR training/contracting context to Sierra Nevada Corp and SAIC (now part of the Leidos lineage)
  • Fleet sister ship: N2100L, another LASAI Global 6500 supporting Army reconnaissance — indicating N1098L is one airframe in a fleet, not a one-off charter

A note on ownership: some online commentators pointed to a New York address (888 7th Ave, Fl 42) reportedly tied to LASAI's filings and noted it matched the offices of Bill Ackman's Pershing Square Capital Management, prompting speculation that Ackman "owns the plane." This claim is unverified and conflicts with the FAA registration and the LASAI/Leidos defense-contracting trail, which point to a government ISR operator rather than private ownership. It is noted here only because it circulated widely; there is no confirmation, and the address overlap alone establishes nothing.

Flight history relevant to the case​

According to publicly available ADS-B data circulated via Flightradar24 and ADS-B Exchange, and the investigation notes built on that data:

  • ~07:48 MDT — Departed Biggs Army Airfield (KBIF), El Paso, TX.
  • ~10:38 MDT — Logged as arriving Glacier Park International Airport (KGPI), Kalispell, MT (a roughly 2h50m repositioning leg). The Utah passes below fall along this corridor.
  • ~11:47 AM MDT (≈3 hours before the shooting) — A descent to roughly 600 ft AGL over the Orem / Utah Lake area. Some accounts put this initial drop near 650 ft.
  • 12:23 PM MDT — Charlie Kirk is shot at UVU.
  • ~12:24–12:48 PM MDT (≈20–25 minutes after the shot) — A second low pass, variously reported between ~335 ft and ~204 ft AGL at roughly 118–129 knots, within about 1–2 miles of the UVU campus, before the aircraft continued out of the corridor. Some accounts describe this leg differently — the aircraft descending to ~300 ft and slowing to ~150 knots while looping around Orem — with one investigator timing the dive at roughly 30 seconds after the shot.

Specific FlightAware legs have been shared by investigators as the open-source backbone of the timeline:

  • 2025-09-10 / 1348Z — KBIF → KGPI (Biggs Army Airfield to Glacier Park International), characterized by some posters as a possible setup/calibration leg.
  • 2025-09-10 / 1732Z — KGPI → KBIF, the return leg that includes the Orem dive; some posters frame it as a possible data-collection run.
  • From there the aircraft is tracked continuing on to KGPI, KHII (Lake Havasu City, AZ), KSNS (Salinas, CA), and back to KBIF.

These leg labels (calibration, data collection) are the posters' interpretations, not confirmed mission descriptions.

The investigators framing this as suspicious emphasize the repeated low-and-slow geometry: a heavy business jet descending from cruise altitude to near stall speed twice over the same area on the day of a political assassination. The competing benign account (see Theories) describes the same two maneuvers as routine training passes.

Investigator @hurtfeelingzday summarized the profile this way in a widely shared post: "ON 9/10/2025 air force jet N1098L mission call sign AXEL10 ... descended to 300 ft, slowed to 150k and looped around Orem. At 1127 MT, it left FCA and did the same low alt/speed loop around Orem." (The "air force" label in that quote conflicts with the Army-ISR/LASAI-Leidos contracting trail documented above; it is reproduced as written.)

Source records on the altitude and speed numbers are not fully consistent — figures of 600/335 ft and 204 ft, and 116/118/129 knots, all appear across different posts. The discrepancy is itself an open question: the investigation notes flag that some of N1098L's flight segments are not fully listed in public tracking data, which makes a single authoritative track hard to assemble from open sources alone.

After September 10, investigators continued tracking the aircraft. The notes record it on the ground at Corpus Christi International Airport (CRP), TX as of early October 2025, and flag scrutiny of later legs toward the Washington, D.C. area. Separately, the notes claim LASAI Aviation aircraft were also observed circling Washington, D.C. on and immediately after January 6, 2021 — offered by investigators as pattern context, not as proof of anything about September 10.

Theories about the aircraft's role​

These are competing, open interpretations. None is confirmed, and there is no official statement naming the crew, the mission authorization, or the tasking for the September 10 sortie.

  • Routine drone-retrieval training (benign account). A widely circulated explanation in defense-aviation discussion holds that drone-retrieval training was the primary purpose of N1098L's Orem passes, characterizing the two low maneuvers as "textbook drop/recovery simulations." Commentators such as @TJPHager have also argued the airframe was not built out to launch drones at all. This is the principal counterpoint to the surveillance theories.
  • Real-time ISR / SIGINT collection. Citizen investigator John Cullen (@I_Am_JohnCullen) has, in his public commentary, described N1098L as a CIA-linked or military ISR asset capable of drone launch/recovery or signals-intelligence collection, and theorized it could have been conducting real-time surveillance of the event. Cullen and others stress that if the aircraft was ISR-tasked, the federal government would hold airborne sensor records of the kill zone. In Patreon and YouTube commentary titled "Why Was a Pentagon HADES Spy Plane at the Scene of Charlie Kirk's Assassination, Twice That Day?", Cullen has gone further and promoted a drone launch/recovery theory in which an armed drone — rather than the named suspect — allegedly fired the shot. This is Cullen's stated theory, not a confirmed finding, and it has not been substantiated.
  • Drone deployment / "drone strike setup." The most aggressive theory ties the low passes to drones reportedly seen over the campus that day — small, fast (~150 mph), hard to see but caught on phone cameras. Investigator Blake Bednarz reported spotting 16 drones; the theory speculates the aircraft dropped drones before the shooting and recovered them after. Posts circulating on X also tie N1098L to Fort Huachuca (the US Army's intelligence and drone-operations base in Arizona), claiming the aircraft's "interesting" maneuvers alongside UVU connect it to Army drone and ISR programs based there. This Huachuca link is an unverified OSINT claim, not a documented tasking record, and is unproven.
  • Airborne command/relay station ("Task Force Charlie"). Investigator @raumgeist has theorized that N1098L served as an airborne command center or relay station passing data to Fort Huachuca as part of what that poster calls "Task Force Charlie," allegedly providing software coordination for the operation, with a possible ground station on campus or carried in a backpack. The same thread chain alleges pre-event meetings linked to Fort Huachuca. This is @raumgeist's stated theory and is unverified; no tasking record supports it.
  • "Spy/drone swarm plane on site." In the wider X discussion, some users have flatly labeled N1098L a "spy/drone swarm plane on site," tying it to the drones reportedly seen over campus. This is an OSINT characterization, not a documented capability claim, and is unverified.
  • Part of a broader "sophisticated operation" narrative. Some citizen theories fold the aircraft into a larger alleged operation involving claims of tunnels and wrong-direction shooting at the scene, describing the day as a "demonstration of latest cutting-edge warfare techniques." These are speculative claims circulating online, presented here as reported allegations rather than established fact; none has been confirmed.
  • Skeptical refutation (for balance). Other commentators reportedly dismiss the armed-drone-deployment theory outright as nonsense, arguing the airframe was never configured to launch weaponized drones and that the low passes are fully explained by routine ISR training. @TJPHager, by his own account, initially set out to refute John Cullen's drone-deployment claim, and has debated the aircraft's ISR capabilities — noting it carried only interior equipment with no visible exterior modifications matching the full HADES ME-11B contracted specifications that critics say a true drone-launch/HADES platform would require. In this reading the jet was not equipped to full HADES contracted specs. This refutation is included so the aggressive drone theory is not presented as settled.
  • Warrants a federal investigation, not a dismissal. Independent voices including Candace Owens and Ian Carroll argue the geometry, timing, and ISR capability of the aircraft justify a formal federal investigation rather than a training-exercise dismissal — a position about process, not a conclusion of guilt.
  • Rogue-faction theory (attributed, unverified). The notes recount an OSINT account's claim of a conversation with a National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) contact whose informal working theory was that a "rogue faction" was responsible and that N1098L's maneuvers were hard to explain as routine. This is a secondhand, unverifiable account included for completeness, not as fact.

Because LASAI is a defense contractor, crew identities for the September 10 flight have not been publicly confirmed. Competing crew lists have circulated online, but none is verified, and standard trackers (FlightAware, Flightradar24) do not publish personnel for private special-mission jets; this page does not name unverified individuals. (For why the contracting layer is opaque, see the ISR Program Context hub.)

Open questions​

  1. Who authorized N1098L's low-altitude passes near a major political event, and under what tasking?
  2. Were drones in fact deployed or recovered during the passes, as the most aggressive theory alleges?
  3. Who crewed the aircraft, and were any of them in contact with US or foreign intelligence?
  4. If N1098L was ISR-tasked, do airborne sensor records of the UVU area exist, and have they been preserved?
  5. Why are some of the aircraft's September 10 flight segments missing from public ADS-B data?
  6. What was the aircraft's tasking on the return leg ~25 minutes after the assassination, and on later legs toward Washington, D.C.?

Sources​

  • ADS-B Exchange, Flightradar24, and FlightAware historical track logs for N1098L on 2025-09-10 — including the shared legs 1348Z KBIF→KGPI and 1732Z KGPI→KBIF (investigators note some segments are absent from public data).
  • The Defense Post and The War Zone (TWZ) coverage of the Army's HADES program and air-launched-drone trials from the Global 6500.
  • Public commentary from Candace Owens, Ian Carroll, and Sam Parker on N1098L's flight path.
  • Citizen investigators including John Cullen (ISR capability and theorized role) and Blake Bednarz (drone sightings).
  • John Cullen (@I_Am_JohnCullen) Patreon/YouTube commentary on the HADES "spy plane" and the drone launch/recovery theory.
  • @raumgeist for the airborne command/relay "Task Force Charlie" theory and the Fort Huachuca link.
  • @hurtfeelingzday for the AXEL10 low-altitude Orem-loop flight summary.
  • @TJPHager for the counter-argument that the airframe was not built to launch drones and was not equipped to full HADES (ME-11B) contracted specs.
  • LASAI Aviation II LLC FAA registration records and Leidos defense-contracting disclosures.
  • NTSB database (search returns no incident for N1098L) and FAA FOIA as the official channels for crew/tasking records.

Laws (Charlie Kirk)​

  • The crew and passengers aboard N1098L, who authorized its low-altitude UVU passes, whether drones were launched or recovered, and any HADES sensor footage of the kill zone and its recipients are exactly the kind of records that the Charlie Kirk Investigation Laws are designed to force into the open.

Citizen Investigator Claims on X​

(Aircraft OSINT and attributed claims — not findings that any pilot, passenger, or official ordered or carried out the assassination.)

  • X users including @Josh89220 cite FAA/transponder logs of an Army HADES-class ISR jet (N1098L / AXLE10 in investigation notes) making low (~200 ft class) passes near UVU/Orem before and after the shooting — correlation claims, not proven operational role in the killing.
  • Commentators ask whether ISR/counter-UAS capability at Provo/UVU that week was routine training or something investigators should subpoena — open question for N1098L and Counter-UAS.
  • This page’s focus (N1098L Spy Plane) should be read with the Planes overview and Sept 10 flight timeline for cross-checks.

Track This Aircraft​

Research this aircraft's flight history yourself on both major flight-tracking sites. They differ in one important way:

  • FlightRadar24 — N1098L — large commercial tracker that honors the FAA's LADD block list, so flights an owner or the government has asked to hide can be missing.
  • ADS-B Exchange — N1098L — volunteer-fed, unfiltered tracker that does not honor LADD, so it often shows blocked aircraft and tracks the filtered sites leave out.
  • ADS-B Exchange — by ICAO hex A0299E — the Mode-S hex is this jet's permanent transponder ID; use it when the registration lookup comes up empty.

Aircraft ID: Bombardier Global 6500 (US Army ISR, HADES/ATHENA program) · registration N1098L · callsign AXLE10 · ICAO hex A0299E. Investigators note some of this aircraft's flights are missing from public tracking, so the unfiltered ADS-B Exchange links above are usually the most complete.