Flight tracking data shows extensive movement of US military aircraft towards the Middle East in recent days, including via the UK.

Fifty-two US military planes were spotted flying over the eastern Mediterranean towards the Middle East between Monday and Thursday.

That includes at least 25 that passed through Chania airport, on the Greek island of Crete – an eight-fold increase in the rate of arrivals compared to the first half of June.

The movement of military equipment comes as the US considers whether to assist Israel in its conflict with Iran.

Of the 52 planes spotted over the eastern Mediterranean, 32 are used for transporting troops or cargo, 18 are used for mid-air refuelling and two are reconnaissance planes.

Forbes McKenzie, founder of McKenzie Intelligence, says that this indicates “the build-up of warfighting capability, which was not [in the region] before”.

Sky’s data does not include fighter jets, which typically fly without publicly revealing their location.

An air traffic control recording from Wednesday suggests that F-22 Raptors are among the planes being sent across the Atlantic, while 12 F-35 fighter jets were photographed travelling from the UK to the Middle East on Wednesday.

Many US military planes are passing through UK

A growing number of US Air Force planes have been passing through the UK in recent days.

Analysis of flight tracking data at three key air bases in the UK shows 63 US military flights landing between 16 and 19 June – more than double the rate of arrivals earlier in June.

On Thursday, Sky News filmed three US military C-17A Globemaster III transport aircraft and a C-130 Hercules military cargo plane arriving at Glasgow’s Prestwick Airport.

Flight tracking data shows that one of the planes arrived from an air base in Jordan, having earlier travelled there from Germany.

What does Israel need from US?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on 15 March that his country’s aim is to remove “two existential threats – the nuclear threat and the ballistic missile threat”.

Israel says that Iran is attempting to develop a nuclear bomb, though Iran says its nuclear facilities are only for civilian energy purposes.

A US intelligence assessment in March concluded that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon. President Trump dismissed the assessment on Tuesday, saying: “I think they were very close to having one.”

Forbes McKenzie says the Americans have a “very similar inventory of weapons systems” to the Israelis, “but of course, they also have the much-talked-about GBU-57”.

The GBU-57 is a 30,000lb bomb – the largest non-nuclear bomb in existence. Mr McKenzie explains that it is “specifically designed to destroy targets which are very deep underground”.

Experts say it is the only weapon with any chance of destroying Iran’s main enrichment site, which is located underneath a mountain at Fordow.

Air-to-air refuelling could allow Israel to carry larger bombs

Among the dozens of US aircraft that Sky News tracked over the eastern Mediterranean in recent days, more than a third (18 planes) were designed for air-to-air refuelling.

“These are crucial because Israel is the best part of a thousand miles away from Iran,” says Sky News military analyst Sean Bell.

“Most military fighter jets would struggle to do those 2,000-mile round trips and have enough combat fuel.”

The ability to refuel mid-flight would also allow Israeli planes to carry heavier munitions, including bunker-buster bombs necessary to destroy the tunnels and silos where Iran stores many of its missiles.

Satellite imagery captured on 15 June shows the aftermath of Israeli strikes on a missile facility near the western city of Kermanshah, which destroyed at least 12 buildings at the site.

At least four tunnel entrances were also damaged in the strikes, two of which can be seen in the image below.

Writing for Jane’s Defence Weekly, military analyst Jeremy Binnie says it looked like the tunnels were “targeted using guided munitions coming in at angles, not destroyed from above using penetrator bombs, raising the possibility that the damage can be cleared, enabling any [missile launchers] trapped inside to deploy”.

“This might reflect the limited payloads that Israeli aircraft can carry to Iran,” he adds.

Penetrator bombs, also known as bunker-busters, are much heavier than other types of munitions and as a result require more fuel to transport.

Israel does not have the latest generation of refuelling aircraft, Mr Binnie says, meaning it is likely to struggle to deploy a significant number of penetrator bombs.

Israel has struck most of Iran’s western missile bases

Even without direct US assistance, the Israeli air force has managed to inflict significant damage on Iran’s missile launch capacity.

Sky News has confirmed Israeli strikes on at least five of Iran’s six known missile bases in the west of the country.

On Monday, the IDF said that its strategy of targeting western launch sites had forced Iran to rely on its bases in the centre of the country, such as Isfahan – around 1,500km (930 miles) from Israel.

Among Iran’s most advanced weapons are three types of solid-fuelled rockets fitted with highly manoeuvrable warheads: Fattah-1, Kheibar Shekan and Haj Qassam.

The use of solid fuel makes these missiles easy to transport and fast to launch, while their manoeuvrable warheads make them better at evading Israeli air defences. However, none of them are capable of striking Israel from such a distance.

Iran is known to possess five types of missile capable of travelling more than 1,500km, but only one of these uses solid fuel – the Sijjil-1.

On 18 June, Iran claimed to have used this missile against Israel for the first time.

Iran’s missiles have caused significant damage

Iran’s missile attacks have killed at least 24 people in Israel and wounded hundreds, according to the Israeli foreign ministry.

The number of air raid alerts in Israel has topped 1,000 every day since the start of hostilities, reaching a peak of 3,024 on 15 June.

Iran has managed to strike some government buildings, including one in the city of Haifa on Friday.

And on 13 June, in Iran’s most notable targeting success so far, an Iranian missile impacted on or near the headquarters of Israel’s defence ministry in Tel Aviv.

Most of the Iranian strikes verified by Sky News, however, have hit civilian targets. These include residential buildings, a school and a university.

On Thursday, one missile hit the Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, southern Israel’s main hospital. More than 70 people were injured, according to Israel’s health ministry.

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said that Iran had struck a nearby technology park containing an IDF cyber defence training centre, and that the “blast wave caused superficial damage to a small section” of the hospital.

However, the technology park is in fact 1.2km away from where the missile struck.

Photos of the hospital show evidence of a direct hit, with a large section of one building’s roof completely destroyed.

Iran successfully struck the technology park on Friday, though its missile fell in an open area, causing damage to a nearby residential building but no casualties.

Israel has killed much of Iran’s military leadership

It’s not clear exactly how many people Israel’s strikes in Iran have killed, or how many are civilians. Estimates by human rights groups of the total number of fatalities exceed 600.

What is clear is that among the military personnel killed are many key figures in the Iranian armed forces, including the military’s chief of staff, deputy head of intelligence and deputy head of operations.

Key figures in the powerful Revolutionary Guard have also been killed, including the militia’s commander-in-chief, its aerospace force commander and its air defences commander.

On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that US assistance was not necessary for Israel to win the war.

“We will achieve all our objectives and hit all of their nuclear facilities,” he said. “We have the capability to do that.”

Forbes McKenzie says that while Israel has secured significant victories in the war so far, “they only have so much fuel, they only have so many munitions”.

“The Americans have an ability to keep up the pace of operations that the Israelis have started, and they’re able to do it for an indefinite period of time.”

Additional reporting by data journalist Joely Santa Cruz and OSINT producers Freya Gibson, Lina-Sirine Zitout and Sam Doak.

The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

They were former classmates who both died after receiving care from the same mental health hospital three years apart.

Warning: This article contains reference to suicide

Multiple failings led to the death of 22-year-old Alice Figueiredo – who took her own life in July 2015 – and the NHS trust responsible for her care was charged with corporate manslaughter.

Last week, following a months-long trial, the trust was found not guilty of that charge but was convicted of serious health and safety failings.

Karis Braithwate, who had gone to school with Alice, also died in 2018, having been treated by the same NHS trust.

Reports seen by Sky News detail a decade of deaths at North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NELFT), with coroners repeatedly raising concerns about the mental health services provided by the trust – in particular at Goodmayes Hospital in Ilford.

Rushed assessments and neglect were often cited. One patient was marked as alive and well, even though he had taken his own life inside the hospital the previous day.

Another patient told staff he was hearing voices telling him to kill himself, yet staff did not remove crucial items from his possession – items he would later use to take his own life.

Karis, 24, was sent to Goodmayes Hospital after she tried to take her own life at a train station in October 2018. The next day, staff spent 27 minutes assessing her and a further two minutes confirming their conclusion.

She was discharged from hospital in the afternoon. She then went to a nearby railway station and took her own life. Her death came less than an hour after she had left the hospital.

Karis had been friends with Alice, her mother said. The pair had been classmates at the same school.

Karis told her mother she was upset at being put on the same ward where Alice had taken her own life three years earlier.

Her stepfather Mark Bambridge called Karis sweet and kind and said she often “struggled with life”. He felt relief when she was taken to hospital, saying: “She was in a place where she would be taken care of.”

Karis’s mother – who asked not to be named – said her daughter confided in her about the neglect she endured at the hospital.

Karis told her mother that her carer would sleep when they were supposed to be watching over her and said she never felt safe.

“She spoke of her belongings going missing, of being treated with indifference and disrespect, and of staff who showed little concern for her wellbeing,” her mother said.

Karis’s mother said her daughter was failed by the hospital and the family was offered only a “hollow, superficial and indifferent ‘apology’ from the administration team of those who were meant to protect her”.

In the wake of the verdict in Alice’s case, Karis’s mother said: “I am holding Alice’s family in my thoughts and praying they receive the justice they – and we – so clearly need and deserve.”

A spokesperson for NELFT called Karis’s death a “profound tragedy” and said the trust had conducted an in-depth review of patient safety since 2018, “resulting in significant changes in the way we assess risk of suicide”.

“We train our staff to consider the trauma in a patient’s history, rather than focusing solely on their current crisis,” the spokesperson added.

“This approach allows us to see the person behind the diagnosis, making it easier to identify warning signs and support safe recovery.”

The trust said it had also improved record-keeping and communication between emergency workers and mental health practitioners.

The man marked as alive after he’d died

Sky News looked at more than 20 prevention of future death reports, which are written by a coroner to draw attention to a matter in which they think action could be taken to prevent future deaths.

Behind each report is a different person, but there are some strikingly similar themes – failure to carry out adequate risk assessments; issues sharing and recording information; neglect.

One report said staff at Goodmayes Hospital “panicked and did not follow policy” in the wake of a man’s death in 2021, instead writing that he was still alive when he had died the day before.

Speaking in response at the time, the trust said it had written a “detailed action plan” to address concerns raised.

Another report said one woman developed deep vein thrombosis after she was left to sit motionless in her room. She had not eaten or drunk anything in the two days before her death, and the trust was criticised for failing to record her food intake.

Responding to the report at the time, the trust said it had implemented new policies to learn from her death.

Issues stretched beyond Goodmayes Hospital and spanned the entire NHS trust.

One man was not given any community support and overdosed after his access to medication was not limited.

Another man, a father of three, was detained under the Mental Health Act but released from Goodmayes after just a few hours. The 39-year-old was found dead two weeks later after being reported missing by his family.

At his inquest, a coroner raised concerns about the lack of a detailed assessment around him, with a junior doctor saying he was the only doctor available for 11 wards and 200 patients.

‘Don’t kill yourself on my shift’

It has been 10 years since Alice took her own life inside the walls of Goodmayes Hospital. But current patients say the issues haven’t gone away.

Teresa Whitbread said her 18-year-old granddaughter Chantelle was a high suicide risk but she still managed to escape from the hospital “20 times”.

“I walked in one day and said, ‘Where is Chantelle?’, and no one could tell me,” she told Sky News.

On another occasion, Chantelle managed to get into the medical room and stabbed herself and a nurse with a needle.

She said one nurse told her granddaughter: “Don’t kill yourself on my shift. Wait until you go home and kill yourself.”

Teresa grew emotional as she talked about her granddaughter, once a vibrant young girl and avid boxer, whose treatment is now managed by community services.

“It’s made her worse,” Teresa said of Chantelle’s experience at Goodmayes Hospital. “There’s no care, there’s no care plan, there’s no treatment.”

The NEFLT said it could not comment on specific cases but added that “patient safety is our absolute priority, and we work closely with our patients and their families to ensure we provide compassionate care tailored to their needs”.

Chantelle’s family say she is a shell of her former self and have begged mental health services not send her back to Goodmayes.

“Something has to change, and if it doesn’t change, [the hospital] needs to be closed down,” Teresa said.

“Because people are not safe in there.”

Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK

In a high-tech move that we can all get behind and isn’t dystopian at all, the City of Barcelona is feeding camera data from its city buses into an advanced AI, but they swear they’re not using the footage to to issue tickets to bad drivers. Yet.

Barcelona and its Ring Roads Low Emission Zone have earned lots of fans by limiting ICE traffic in the city’s core. The city’s latest idea to promote mass transit is the deployment of an artificial intelligence system developed by Hayden AI for automatic enforcement of reserved lanes and stops to improve bus circulation – but while it seems to be working as intended, it’s raising entirely different questions.

“Bus lanes are designed to help deliver reliable, fast, and convenient public transport service. But private vehicles illegally using bus lanes make this impossible,” explains Laia Bonet, First Deputy Mayor, Area for Urban Planning, Ecological Transition, Urban Services and Housing at the Ajuntament de Barcelona. “We are excited to partner with Hayden AI to learn where these problems occur and how they are impacting our public transport service.”

Currently operating as a pilot program on the city’s H12 and D20 bus lines, the system uses cameras installed on the city’s electric buses to detect vehicles that commit static violations in the bus lanes and stops (read: stopping or parking where you shouldn’t). The Hayden AI system then analyses that data and provides statistical information on what it captures while the bus is driving along on its daily route.

Advertisement – scroll for more content

Hayden AI says that, while it photographs and records video sequences and collects contextual information of the violation, its cameras do not record license plates or people and no penalties are being issued to drivers or owners of the vehicles.

So far so good, right? But it’s what happens once the six mont pilot is over that seems like it should be setting off alarm bells.

Big Brother Bus is watching

The footage is manually reviewed by a Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona (TMB) officer, who reportedly reviewed some 2,500 violations identified by AI in May alone. But, while the system isn’t being used to issue violations during the pilot program, it easily could.

And, in fact, it already has … and the AI f@#ked up royally.

AI writes thousands of bad tickets

When AI was given the ability to issue citations in New York City earlier this year, it wrote more than 290,000 tickets (that’s right: two-hundred and ninety thousand) in just three months, generating nearly $21 million in revenue for the city. The was just one problem: thousands of those drivers weren’t doing anything wrong.

What’s more, the photos generated by the AI powered cameras were supposed to be approved only after being verified by a human, but either that didn’t happen, or it did happen and the human operator in question wasn’t paying attention, or (maybe the worst possibility) the violations were mistakes or hallucinations, and the human checker couldn’t tell the difference.

In OpenAI’s tests of its newest o3 and o4-mini reasoning models, the company found the o3 model hallucinated 33% of the time during its PersonQA tests, in which the bot is asked questions about public figures. When asked short fact-based questions in the company’s SimpleQA tests, OpenAI said o3 hallucinated 51% of the time. The o4-mini model fared even worse: It hallucinated 41% of the time during the PersonQA test and 79% of the time in the SimpleQA test, though OpenAI said its worse performance was expected as it is a smaller model designed to be faster. OpenAI’s latest update to ChatGPT, GPT-4.5, hallucinates less than its o3 and o4-mini models. The company said when GPT-4.5 was released in February the model has a hallucination rate of 37.1% for its SimpleQA test.

FORBES

I don’t know about you guys, but if we had a local traffic cop that got it wrong 33% of the time (at best), I’d be surprised if they kept their job for very long. But AI? AI has a multibillion dollar hype train and armies of undereducated believers talking about singularities and building themselves blonde robots with boobs. And once the AI starts issuing tickets to the AI that’s driving your robotaxi, it can just call its buddy AI the bank to send over your money. No human necessary, at any point, and the economy keeps on humming.

But, like – I’m sure that’s fine. Embrace the future and all that … right?

SOURCES: Hayden AI, via Forbes, Motorpasión.

Your personalized home solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. The best part? You won’t get a single phone call until after you’ve elected to move forward. Get started, hassle-free, by clicking here.