Diego Garcia is a tropical, footprint-shaped coral island located south of the equator in the central Indian Ocean. It is part of the British Indian Ocean Territory and administered by the UK. A local government as normally envisioned does not exist.
Diego Garcia is home to the U.S. Navy’s Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia and its 1700 S. military personnel and 1500 civilian contractor. The Naval Support Facility SG is a large naval ship and submarine support base, military air base, communications and space-tracking facility, and an anchorage for pre-positioned military supplies for regional operations aboard Military Sealift Command ships in the lagoon.
According to news.com.au, the island is so little-known that it has been rumored that the US authorities have used it as a base for a secret prison.
It is also the same landing strip that was programmed into the home flight simulator of missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370’s pilot, Captain Zaharie Shah.
Blogger Jim Stone maintains the missing MH370 had landed in Diego Garcia because an American MH370 passenger, Philip Wood, managed to send a text from his iPhone stating that he was being held hostage by unknown military personnel, along with GPS coordinates. Those coordinates revealed a location a few kilometres away from Diego Garcia, although some have argued that it is quite easy to fake a mobile phone’s GPS coordinates.
Now, the discovery of a notice posted on the Facebook of the Diego Garcia Passenger Service is lending some credence to Stone and Wood.
What is Diego Garcia Passenger Service? This is what its “About” page says:
Welcome to Diego Garcia AMC Passenger Terminal, U.S. Naval Support Facility British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), the ” Footprint of Freedom “. At Diego Garcia Passenger Terminal, we understand the needs and expectations of travelers and provide a variety of passenger services to make your airport visit pleasant and convenient. On behalf of Detachment 1, 730th Air Mobility (AMC), we wish you a safe and enjoyable journey.
5 days ago on April 5, 2014, the following notice was posted to Diego Garcia Passenger Service‘s main Facebook page:
H/t OrlyTaitzEsq.com
~Eowyn