Detroit (KDTW) — February and March 2025
SU-BTV entered the United States at Detroit twice in early 2025, and on both occasions flew onward the same day — once to Lincoln, once to Wichita.
No Kirk or TPUSA pairing has ever been offered for either date, by anyone. Michigan is not among the five states in the geographic clustering. This page exists because the completeness rule for this section requires it: an airport this fleet used is documented here whether or not it helps the claim. Recording the locations that do not support the pattern is what makes the ones that do worth reading.
The airport
| Name | Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport |
| Identifiers | KDTW (ICAO) / DTW (IATA) |
| City / State | Romulus, Wayne County, Michigan |
| Class | Major international hub — one of the largest airports in the United States, full US customs port of entry |
| Distance to Lincoln (KLNK) | ~700 miles; the logged hop is 1:46 |
| Distance to Wichita (KICT) | ~750 miles; the logged hop is 1:55 |
How unusual is a foreign government jet here
Not unusual at all. Detroit is a major international gateway with full customs facilities. A transatlantic business jet clearing into the United States here is the airport operating exactly as intended.
If anything, Detroit is the most conventional entry point this fleet used anywhere in its record — more so than Omaha, and far more so than Minot.
The foreign side — both arrivals
| Date | Aircraft | Arrived from | Leg duration | Onward | Hop duration | Final destination |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Feb 2025 | SU-BTV | Paris–Le Bourget | 8:29 | Lincoln (LNK) | 1:46 | 6-day stay, then Wilmington 9 Feb, Cairo 10 Feb |
| 30 Mar 2025 | SU-BTV | Paris–Le Bourget | 8:03 | Wichita (ICT) | 1:55 | 4-day stay, then Wilmington 3 Apr, Cairo 6 Apr |
Both are the same rotation template this fleet flies everywhere: Cairo → Paris-Le Bourget → US entry → onward hop → sit → Wilmington → Cairo. The only variable is which US field.
Note that neither hop is the 15-to-20-minute repositioning flight seen at Omaha and St. Louis. These are genuine 700-mile transits, because Detroit is nowhere near either destination. The aircraft cleared customs at a big hub and then flew properly across the country — which is what an operator does when the convenient entry point and the shop are not in the same region.
The Kirk / TPUSA side
Nothing.
No researcher timeline, overlap spreadsheet, or X thread offers a Kirk or TPUSA pairing for 3 February 2025 or 30 March 2025 in Michigan. Michigan appears in none of the state clusterings. Neither Kirk is placed in Michigan on either date by any source.
These two arrivals exist in the flight record and in no overlap tally. They are the fleet doing what it does, at a place where nobody was looking.
The overlap table
| Date | Foreign tail | Foreign movement | Kirk / TPUSA side | Gap | Arrived from | Departed to | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Feb 2025 | SU-BTV | Entry, onward same day | none — no claim offered | — | Paris (LBG) | Lincoln (LNK) | Export only |
| 30 Mar 2025 | SU-BTV | Entry, onward same day | none — no claim offered | — | Paris (LBG) | Wichita (ICT) | Export only |
Why an empty page is worth having
Three reasons, and they apply across this whole section.
1. It shows the entry points vary and the destinations do not. Across 2024–2025 this fleet cleared into the United States at Omaha, Detroit, St. Louis, Minot and Williston — five different fields on both coasts of the interior. But it went to a much shorter list of places afterwards: Lincoln, Wichita, Provo, St. Louis. The entry point looks chosen for convenience on the day; the destination looks fixed. That is the signature of an aircraft going somewhere specific for a reason, and the reason at Lincoln and Wichita is documented — they are Falcon service centres.
2. It tests the clustering. The five-state clustering (Missouri, Delaware, Utah, Nebraska, Kansas) is offered as evidence that the aircraft followed the Kirks. But the fleet also went to Michigan twice, and Michigan is not in the cluster — because nothing was happening in Michigan. That is what you would expect if the aircraft's itinerary were driven by maintenance and the "cluster" were an artefact of where TPUSA happened to have activity. It is not what you would expect if the itinerary were driven by a target's movements.
3. It is the honest way to publish a pattern. A location log that only contains the locations supporting the claim is not a log; it is a case. If the Detroit arrivals had produced a same-day Kirk appearance in Michigan, that row would be on this page in bold. They did not, and this page says so.
A note on the unrelated Michigan claim
A separate assertion circulating on X — that "the same small UVU aircraft seen loitering over Utah Valley University" were also flying over Grand Blanc, Michigan during a later incident at an LDS church on 28 September 2025 — has nothing to do with these arrivals.
That claim involves small single-engine trainers (N114UV, a Diamond DA40; N908PA, a Diamond DA20-C1) operating out of Provo and Spanish Fork, matched against an unregistered Cessna 172 in Michigan. It fails on the aircraft type printed in the poster's own screenshot, and it is set out and assessed on the Planes Investigation Index.
It is mentioned here only so that a reader searching "Michigan" in this investigation finds both items and does not confuse them. The Detroit arrivals on this page are Egyptian-registered Falcon 7X flights; the Grand Blanc claim is about flight-school trainers.
The counterargument
There is no claim on this page to argue against. For completeness:
- Detroit is a major international customs port. Clearing here is ordinary.
- Both arrivals departed the same day for destinations with documented Falcon maintenance facilities.
- No pairing has been alleged by anyone, including by the researchers making the strongest claims elsewhere.
- The rotations fit the same fixed template flown at every other location in this section.
What we do not know
- Why Detroit on these two occasions and Omaha on the others. Slot availability, weather, fuel pricing and crew duty limits all produce this kind of variation, and none of it is public.
- The CBP entry records for both arrivals exist at Detroit and have never been requested.
- Whether anyone joined or left the aircraft at Detroit.
- Whether Charlie or Erika Kirk was in Michigan on either date. Nobody has claimed either was.
Links
- Up: Following overview · Following Charlie or Erika · Planes
- Tail: SU-BTV
- Where both arrivals went: Lincoln (KLNK) · Wichita (KICT)
- The exit airport: Wilmington (KILG)
- The other entry points: Omaha (KOMA) · Minot (KMOT) · St. Louis (KSTL)
- The Grand Blanc trainer claim: Planes Investigation Index