How ‘Twitter randos’ at Airwars and The Intercept disproved claims of “immediate” response
This methodology article accompanies an investigation Airwars co-published with The Intercept on February 17, 2026, that revealed critical delays to search and rescue obligations during on-going U.S. boat strikes campaign against so-called ‘narco-terrorists’ alleged to be smuggling drugs towards the United States.
While the legal framework for the boat strikes remains contested, the duty to rescue the shipwrecked is an obligation largely agreed upon by all. In every announcement of a new strike with survivors, the U.S. appears to meet that obligation, claiming search and rescue efforts were deployed ‘immediately’. Our investigation challenges that claim, using open source flight tracking methods to reveal delays of more than 40 hours to deployed rescue attempts.
Since the United States began conducting strikes against alleged ‘narco-terrorists’ in September 2025, there has been little way to independently verify the claims of the Trump administration. Maritime strikes present unique challenges for independent verification – the ocean offers none of the visual landmarks that make land-based geolocations possible, the small vessels targeted are designed to evade detection, strike aircraft and drones do not transmit their positions, and the U.S. has disclosed strike details primarily through social media posts rather than press briefings. The result is that the U.S. military’s account of these operations has gone largely unchallenged.
At the same time, recent statements by a top U.S. military official appear to disparage efforts to independently monitor the actions of increasingly active U.S. forces, labelling open source analysts tracking accounts the “twitter feeds of randos” while Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has claimed the journalists fail to understand the “fog of war”.
This is how our ‘twitter randos’ held the U.S. military to account.
A Red Flag in the Timeline
On December 30th, 2025, the U.S. targeted three small “go-fast” vessels traveling together, suspected of transporting narcotics in the Eastern Pacific. Three people were killed in the initial strike and eight survivors were left in the water, the U.S. military declared.
While the strike occurred a day earlier, U.S. Southern Command did not publicly disclose it until the afternoon of December 31st. The U.S. Coast Guard posted an acknowledgment that they were conducting SAR operations that same evening. Airwars’ ongoing monitoring of U.S. maritime strikes in the region had given our team an understanding that time is critical in maritime SAR operations. Reviewing the strike video released by U.S. Southern Command, we observed that the attack occurred during daylight hours on the 30th. This raised immediate concern: if the strike happened when disclosed, nearly 24 hours had passed before the U.S. Coast Guard publicly confirmed that search and rescue operations were underway.
The initial SOUTHCOM X post also deviated from previous disclosures in notable ways. It did not specify how many survivors entered the water, stating only that the remaining crew “abandoned the other two vessels, jumping overboard.” In prior strikes, SOUTHCOM had disclosed survivor numbers. The statement also omitted whether the strike occurred in the Eastern Pacific or the Caribbean. These omissions were unusual and contributed to Airwars dedicating additional analytical attention to this incident. SOUTHCOM later revised its statement on January 8th, disclosing eight survivors and specifying the Eastern Pacific, following reporting by Nick Turse at The Intercept.
Frame from U.S. SOUTHCOM strike video showing the December 30th attack in daylight hours. The visible lighting conditions indicated the strike occurred during the day on the 30th, approximately 24 hours before the Coast Guard announced search operations had begun.
For the December 30th strike, the SAR mission was assigned to the U.S. Coast Guard, allowing our research to focus specifically on Coast Guard assets and their bases of operation.
A Lucky Break From an Unexpected Source
On January 2nd, Colombian President Gustavo Petro posted on X that Colombia’s navy was prepared to assist in the rescue of survivors from vessels that were attacked. The post included a Google Earth screenshot showing details about a Colombian naval asset and a point of interest in the Eastern Pacific. The screenshot included a distance and bearing from a location in Mexico that we were able to identify. Using those two values, we calculated approximate coordinates for the point of interest, which appeared very likely to be the location of the December 30th strike.
President Petro’s Google Earth screenshot posted January 2nd, 2026, showing distance and bearing from a known location in Mexico. This information allowed Airwars to calculate coordinates that appeared consistent with the strike location and fell within the U.S. Coast Guard’s jurisdiction
Crucially, this location fell within JRCC Alameda, a rescue coordination region assigned to the United States. This increased our confidence that the search was being handled by the U.S. Coast Guard and had not been transferred to another SAR agency.
Tracking the Aircraft
The search was suspended on January 2nd. The Coast Guard issued a press release disclosing that the search flight was conducted by a U.S. Coast Guard HC-130J Super Hercules aircraft launched from Sacramento, California. The HC-130J is a long-range aircraft specifically designed for SAR missions, and the Coast Guard operates a limited number of them. This made verification simpler: we could determine whether one had actually flown from Sacramento following the strike.
Not all flight tracking platforms have the same coverage of military aircraft. FlightRadar24 did not have historical data for this aircraft, but ADSB Exchange did. ADSB Exchange, a free to use flight tracking platform, uses distinct icons for different aircraft types. With some familiarity with the platform, the C-130J is recognisable in playback data. Scanning historical playback over Sacramento for December 30th and 31st, we spotted the aircraft and confirmed it as U.S. Coast Guard. From there, we noted its hex code (AE57D4), which allowed us to pull the aircraft’s complete flight history and reconstruct the timeline: departure from Sacramento, transit to Costa Rica on December 31st, and the subsequent return to California.
ADSB Exchange flight track showing the U.S. Coast Guard HC-130J’s route from Sacramento, California to Costa Rica on December 31st, 2025. The aircraft is shown over the Gulf of Mexico at the end of December 31st, still in transit and not yet in position to begin search operations.
What the Timeline Revealed
The flight data showed that between 39 and 47 hours elapsed from the estimated time of the strike to when SAR operations could realistically have begun, accounting for the HC-130J’s transit from Sacramento and the crew rest required after the long flight. In maritime SAR operations, where survival times in open water are measured in hours, not days, a delay of this length is significant.
(Nathan Walker/Airwars)
We shared these findings with Turse at The Intercept, whose reporting on the maritime strikes has been extensive. Through his networks and experience, he was then able to confirm our analysis and develop a fuller picture of the operation. His reporting revealed details inaccessible through open sources alone, including that only one commercial vessel responded to the Coast Guard’s calls for assistance: the container ship MAERSK EUREKA.
With the MAERSK EUREKA identified, Airwars used vessel tracking platforms to locate the vessel’s diversion track to the search area on December 31st, which allowed us to further refine the strike area coordinates.
Conclusion
The December 30th strike is one of several U.S. maritime operations in the region since September 2025 where the fate of survivors has raised serious questions. Airwars continues to monitor and document these strikes, and the methods outlined here represent one approach to establishing accountability through open source evidence.
The process illustrates how open source research and investigative journalism can strengthen each other. Airwars provided an initial timeline and geographic analysis. Reporting uncovered operational details inaccessible through open sources. Those details then fed back into further open source investigative work for additional geographic precision.
