| Time (Central) | Direction | Tail | Type | Operator | Callsign | From / to | Evidence | Sources |
|---|
ICE aircraft on the ground at AEX
Recently departed (last 8 hours)
On-the-ground status depends on our receivers (or the archive) seeing each landing and takeoff. If a takeoff is missed, the aircraft drops off this page after 48 hours, or after 12 hours if its arrival was only inferred. Times marked ≈ are estimates.
One row per stay at AEX: when the aircraft landed, how long it sat on the ramp, where it came from, and where it went next.
| Tail | Arrived | Departed | On ground | From | To | Type / operator | Callsigns | Evidence | Sources |
|---|
Where ICE aircraft flew before and after AEX. Press Play to replay the flights over time, or switch to "All routes" to see the network at once.
Show routes as a table
| Airport | Country | Direction | Flights |
|---|
Aircraft linked to ICE flights that have used AEX. Many are hidden from commercial flight-tracking sites.
| Photo | Tail | Hex | Type | Operator | Registered owner | Status | AEX visits | Last at AEX |
|---|
Each ICE visit to AEX, checked against every source that reported it: our receivers and the adsb.lol archive.
Aircraft our receivers hear right now. ICE-linked aircraft are highlighted. Select one to draw its recorded track.
About this data
Alexandria International Airport is the busiest hub for ICE deportation flights in the United States. Detainees are bused in from detention centers across Louisiana and the South and put on chartered jets bound for other detention centers, the border, or other countries. Several of the contractors that fly them have their aircraft blocked from public flight-tracking sites. This page lists each arrival and departure we can attribute to those aircraft, with the records available for download.
Where the data comes from
- Our own receivers. ADS-B radio receivers in central Louisiana (listed above) listen directly to the transponders of aircraft near AEX. They hear aircraft that commercial tracking sites hide.
- The adsb.lol open-data archive. Daily snapshots of worldwide flight positions collected by volunteers, published under the Open Database License (ODbL). We use it to fill in history and to follow each aircraft after it leaves our range.
- The adsb.lol live API. Used to find where a flagged aircraft lands after it departs AEX.
- The tar1090-db aircraft database. Registration, type, owner and flags (including the FAA's LADD block list and military status) for each transponder code.
- OurAirports for airport names, cities and countries.
- Planespotters.net for aircraft photos. Photos load directly from Planespotters in your browser, which sends them the aircraft's hex code (and sometimes its tail number); our server is not involved. Each photo links to its page and credits the photographer.
How we decide a flight is an ICE flight
Each aircraft gets one of these classifications:
- Confirmed
- Documented on ICE flights in published reporting, or confirmed by a Kingfish reporter.
- Likely
- The aircraft belongs to a company that flies ICE Air contracts, or used a callsign associated with ICE flights. These operators also fly other charters (sports teams, vacation charters), so a single flight by a "likely" aircraft is not proof of a deportation flight.
- Needs review
- An airliner or military transport made an unscheduled stop at AEX and is not on our list. A person needs to look at it before it is counted as either.
- Dismissed
- Reviewed and found not to be an ICE flight. Hidden from the log by default.
Reporting by Human Rights First's ICE Flight Monitor and Witness at the Border is the starting point for which operators and aircraft are on the list.
How we know when a plane landed or left
A stop is detected when an aircraft descends toward an airport and its track ends or slows there, then picks up again later. Every arrival and departure time carries a label for how we know it:
- ground
- A receiver heard the aircraft on the ground at the airport. This is the strongest evidence.
- low
- The aircraft was seen low over the runway and then disappeared (or appeared low and climbing). Very likely a landing or takeoff; the time is close.
- inferred
- Reconstructed from a gap in coverage: the aircraft was last seen descending toward the airport and next seen climbing away from it. These times are approximate and marked with "≈". Each carries a confidence score, and when another airport fits the same gap we list it as an alternative.
Predicted destinations
ADS-B broadcasts carry no destination. While a flagged aircraft is still in the air after leaving AEX, we predict where it is going from its course compared with the straight route to each airport, plus where this aircraft and its operator usually fly. If a FlightAware AeroAPI key is configured we use the filed flight plan instead, marked filed. Predictions are marked predicted and end with a question mark. Once the landing is recorded it replaces the prediction.
Limits of the data
- Inferred stops can be wrong. Check the confidence score and any listed alternatives before reporting a specific origin or destination.
- Some aircraft broadcast a "privacy ICAO address" (PIA), a temporary transponder code that changes over time. Others are on the FAA's LADD list, which hides them from FlightAware and Flightradar24. Our receivers still hear both, but a PIA code can't always be tied to a tail number.
- Coverage has gaps. A flight that no receiver and no archive volunteer heard will not appear here, so a flight missing from this page may still have happened.
- Seat counts are the typical seating range for the aircraft type. They are a ceiling, not a passenger count: ICE charters carry guards and crew in some seats, and flights are not always full.
- Times are shown in Central time. CSV downloads use UTC.