“A 21-year-old Chinese national, Tianrui Liang, has been arrested and is facing charges after photographing a U.S. ‘doomsday plane’ and other military aircraft without authorization at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. He was taken into custody at JFK Airport following the incident,” Rawsalerts wrote.Fox News explained further:
Tianrui Liang, 21, is accused of violating a federal law that restricts photographing defense installations without authorization, according to court documents filed in the Eastern District of New York.
Authorities say Liang was taken into custody April 7 while attempting to board an international flight, just days after a warrant was issued in Nebraska.
The case centers on activity near Offutt Air Force Base, home to U.S. Strategic Command — one of the Pentagon’s most sensitive installations.
According to an FBI affidavit, investigators were alerted after a witness reported seeing “a male holding a camera with a telescopic lens” near the base, where aircraft are stationed on the flight line.
Offutt hosts high-value reconnaissance and command aircraft, including the RC-135 surveillance plane and the E-4B “Nightwatch,” often referred to as the military’s “doomsday plane.”
Federal agents say Liang later admitted to photographing several aircraft at the base, “including the RC-135 and the E-4B.”
According to The Herald, the Chinese national is a student at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, studying aeronautical engineering.
He was scheduled to fly from New York to Glasgow via Frankfurt.More from The Herald:
An affidavit was submitted by FBI special agent Noah Heflin to the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York, reporting that Liang flew to Vancouver, Canada, on March 26 to meet with a friend, a student at New York’s Columbia University.
It then states that they drove together across the border into the United States on March 28, travelling to Billings, Montana, via Seattle.
Liang’s friend is then recorded flying back to New York on March 28, whereas, he drove the same vehicle to Ellisworth Air Force Base in South Dakota, where he had wanted to photograph the B1-B aircraft, a strategic bomber, only to find out that it had been moved to Offutt Air Force Base, where he then set a course for.
In the affidavit, agent Heflin said Liang got the idea of visiting the Offut base from a “planespotter” website, which he claimed gave instructions on where you could go to take pictures of various flightlines.
Heflin went on to state that there was “sufficient probable cause” to believe that Liang photographed Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska without the approval of the base commander.
The base, located south of Omaha, is the host station for the 55th Wing, the largest such unit in the US Air Force’s (USAF) Air Combat Command. A witness reportedly saw a man in a vehicle near the base holding a camera with a telescopic lens while an aeroplane was on the runway.
Liang is reported to have said that he knew that taking photographs of the planes on the base was illegal, but added that they were “only for his own personal collection.”
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