Trump-voting pilot detained for months says administration is 'useless'

Two American pilots have been stranded in West Africa for months, and the government has done little to help them get home, one of them told Semafor.

In an interview, Brad Schlenker, a supporter of President Donald Trump, said he's been in detention in Guinea since late last year.

The U.S. government, he said, has been “useless” in helping them.

“I voted for this administration because they were supposed to protect Americans,” he explained.

He complained that there's no public attention to his plight and that the State Department has taken a more "low-key" approach the report described.

Schlenker said that he's heard from some close to the situation that “if someone from the State Department had simply called, if [Secretary of State] Marco Rubio or [Defense Secretary] Pete Hegseth or someone else just picked up the phone, we’d be out of here.”

He thinks that the issue might be related to one of Trump's mineral deals “weighing in on this situation."

"Guinea contains some of the world’s largest deposits of bauxite and iron ore, and the Trump administration has actively cultivated Conakry as a partner during a wider push to secure African mineral resources," said the report.

The U.S. signed the framework of a deal with Guinea to have a company that includes several of Trump's former administration officials to build a railway from the iron mines to the Liberian coast. The project would be an alternative to China's elevated rail, which runs across Kenya and would reach Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the BBC reported in 2023.

Schlenker's ex-wife, Kerrie, explained that on December 28, Brad and his co-pilot, Fabio Nunez, were contracted to fly a family of five to Dubai with a planned stop to refuel in Guinea. She called her ex a by-the-book pilot in an interview with WIFR in February. He wouldn't have started the engines without filing their flight plan and ensuring there was approval, she said.

Suddenly, however, Guinea pulled the approval to land and refuel, the WIFR report said.

“They searched the plane. They searched it like five times for contraband, drugs, whatever. Dogs were brought in, everything,” Kerri said. “And basically, they’ve got nothing. They found nothing at all.”

The country's military did its own investigation into everyone on board, including the children, WIFR said. There was no explanation why they were being detained. The pilots were held for a week and transported to what Kerrie said she thinks is a military prison.

“They’re in a cell, 15 by 20 with, like, 10 other guys,” Kerrie told WIFR. “It’s really bad conditions. Not like our jails here.”

Kerrie said that three judges have already declared Schlenker and Fabio are innocent of any wrongdoing. But the prosecutor refuses to give up and let them go. They say that the prosecutor wants to take the case to the Guinean Supreme Court.

Guinean authorities tried to charge the men with unauthorized landing and a breach of their national security, but the pilots had radio transcripts confirming they had clearance to land, Semafor said.

Then, the Guinean authorities thought that the plane was stolen and that the owner had a suspicious background. The pilots have made it clear that they had no way of knowing anything about that. They were only hired on a charter basis, and there were no issues with the plane, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Schlenker said.

The administration also hasn't provided much information to the lawmakers from the pilots' home states. Senators from Illinois and New Jersey sent a joint letter to the State Department requesting further information, and after over a month, they still haven't received a response, their offices told Semafor.

The State Department told Semafor that the U.S. government regularly visits the men in prison and “remains engaged on this case.”

“The Trump Administration has no higher priority than the safety and security of Americans,” the State Department said. The White House told Semafor that Trump “is always concerned about Americans detained abroad.”

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