Retired pilot claimed Trumps plane flew to Epsteins island 37 times. Here are the facts

• In August 2025, a Facebook consumer who said he was a former Canadian Airlines pilot claimed that U.S. President Donald Trump’s plane flew to the late financier and convicted intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein’s island at least 37 occasions.

• Epstein, who died in prison in 2019, owned the Great St. James and Little St. James islands, half of the U.S. Virgin Islands. Prosecutors claimed Epstein trafficked underage women to Little St. James to conceal the abuse of his victims.

• However, we discovered no evidence that the declare about Trump’s plane flying to Little St. James was true. We couldn’t confirm that the Facebook consumer who made the declare really labored for Canadian Airlines, a provider that Air Canada acquired in 2001. Alongside the declare, the Facebook consumer shared a image of himself carrying what appeared to be a pilot’s costume from the online retailer Amazon.

• Reporting about Little St. James discovered that visitors accessed the island either by boat or helicopter because it did not have an airstrip, additional discrediting the declare that any of Trump or his companies’ planes would have flown to or landed there.

• Trump said in January 2025 that he never visited Epstein’s island.

In August 2025, a declare (archived) circulated online, reportedly made by a retired Canadian Airlines pilot, that U.S. President Donald Trump’s plane flew to the late financier and convicted intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein’s island at least 37 occasions.

Tom Crosby, the Facebook consumer who first made the declare on Aug. 6, 2025, wrote:

I dont know, but every flight that flies is tracked by ATS. Donald Trump’s plane flew to Epstein’s island at least 37 occasions, tracked on radar. You’re welcome. All flights anyplace are saved for ten years or more. Retired pilot, Canadian Airlines First Officer Tom Crosby

(Facebook consumer Tom Crosby)

The declare was common on Facebook (archived). It also circulated on X (archived), Threads (archived) and Bluesky (archived). Snopes readers wrote in asking if the declare was true.

However, we discovered no evidence to show Crosby’s declare and additional research shed doubt on his alleged credentials. Commenters on Crosby’s post identified that the pin he wore in the hooked up photograph didn’t appear to be one belonging to Canadian Airlines, a provider that Air Canada acquired in 2001. Rather, the pin appeared to come from a pilot’s costume from the online retailer Amazon, which also included a white shirt with epaulets like the one Crosby wore.

Commenters also requested for more proof of Crosby’s declare, which we also didn’t discover reported in respected news sources (archived, archived, archived, archived). The declare would have been widely reported if true. Crosby claimed “All flights anywhere are saved for ten years or more,” a assertion we discovered troublesome to stand up.

We reached out to Crosby to ask for evidence of his declare and former employment with Canadian Airlines. We also reached out to Air Canada to attempt to confirm Crosby’s claimed former employment. We reached out to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the authorities company that regulates civil aviation in the U.S., to confirm Crosby’s claims about flight document retention. We await replies to our queries.

Trump said in January 2025 he never visited Epstein’s island, which prosecutors alleged the financier used to conceal the intercourse trafficking and abuse of underage victims. Epstein owned the Great St. James and Little St. James islands in the U.S. Virgin Islands before his death in 2019. He used Little St. James to entertain distinguished visitors from fields spanning politics, leisure and business and had reportedly supposed to develop Great St. James with houses and other facilities.

Crosbys declare departed from actuality

Upon inspection, components of Crosby’s declare appeared to discredit the thought that flight data existed to show that “Donald Trump’s plane” flew to Little St. James Island 37 occasions.

Firstly, the Trump Organization owns a number of planes and helicopters. Trump purchased a Boeing 727 in 1997 that had beforehand flown as half of Trump Shuttle, Trump’s short-lived airline. He then changed the 727 in 2011 with the current Trump Force One. The Trump Organization also owned a Cessna Citation X that it offered in May 2024. Crosby didn’t specify which plane his declare referred to. Additionally, Little St. James Island doesn’t have an airstrip. Rather, an investigation into guests to the island by the tech magazine WIRED in 2024 discovered that people arrived on the island either by helicopter or boat after flying to close by St. Thomas.

It was not doable to show Crosby’s secondary declare about “all flights anywhere” being saved for “ten years or more.” Our research discovered the Department of Transportation required “Certificated air carriers,” that means carriers licensed by the DOT to carry passengers or cargo to retain “System report of airplane movements” for just three years. We didn’t discover particular retention insurance policies for personal jets exterior data relating to upkeep. “All flights anywhere” was also an extraordinarily broad assertion, as particular person nations have particular person companies regulating air visitors and document retention.

Live data about the motion of personal jets is mostly public because the plane rely on public systems like air visitors control, lights and runways to operate. Some flight monitoring websites mix publicly accessible data with (sometimes) personal data about the possession of personal plane to monitor superstar jets. However, it was unclear at the time of this writing how long the FAA, the company that facilitates the assortment of this data, retained it.

Originator of declare adopted anti-Trump tremendous PAC

Though our investigation discovered no evidence to assist Crosby’s declare, the profile that posted it appeared to be real, that means it belonged to a real particular person as opposed to AI slop accounts that unfold provably false claims from nameless platforms.

Crosby beforehand posted (archived) photos of himself that confirmed the same particular person in the Aug. 6 photograph. The account also tagged associates and relations in posts and posted persistently about the same hobbies — normally indicators that a real particular person is behind an account.

Crosby made roughly the same declare a number of occasions (archived, archived) on Aug. 6, based on local time in Regina, Saskatchewan, where his Facebook profile said he was based. On July 13, Crosby made a comparable declare (archived) that “We also have every flight log or boat that went to Epstein’s island.” Crosby posted these claims on varied teams associated to the Meidas Touch News Network, an impartial community that described itself as “pro-democracy.” The community grew out of a tremendous PAC that beforehand supported former U.S. President Joe Biden’s marketing campaign.

On Feb. 15, 2025, Crosby posted (archived) that he was the “webmaster of the Meidas Touch news network.” Crosby was an administrator of at least two Facebook teams associated to the Meidas Touch News Network. Rolling Stone described Meidas Touch in 2021 as “anti-Trump.”

In sum …

Though hypothesis continues to encompass Epstein and Little St. James island, we discovered no evidence of the particular declare that “Donald Trump’s plane” flew to Little St. James Island 37 occasions.

We discovered no evidence that Tom Crosby, who posted the declare on pages associated to the “anti-Trump” news community Meidas Touch, was really employed by Canadian Airlines as he claimed in his post. Crosby wore a pin that was an identical to one discovered in a pilot’s costume offered by Amazon in an image accompanying the declare.

Though we should not have major evidence in the kind of flight logs for Trump’s plane at the time, we do know that planes couldn’t land on Little St. James but moderately landed on close by St. Thomas. Whether Trump was on board or not, his plane couldn’t have landed on Little St. James Island, making 37 flights to that vacation spot unbelievable.

Trump said in January 2025 that he had never visited Epstein’s island. There had been no public evidence to the opposite at the time of this writing.

Sources:

“14 CFR § 249.20 – Preservation of Records by Certificated Air Carriers.” LII / Legal Information Institute, https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/textual content/14/249.20. Accessed 8 Aug. 2025.

14 CFR 91.417 — Maintenance Records. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/part-91/section-91.417. Accessed 8 Aug. 2025.

“About Us.” MeidasTouch News, (*37*)https://meidasnews.com/web page/about-us. Accessed 8 Aug. 2025.

BINQILIN Pilot Captain Costume Kit Aviator Glasses Badge Hat & Tie Set Pilot Dress up Accessory Set : Amazon.Co.Uk: Toys & Games. https://www.amazon.co.uk/BINQILIN-Captain-Costume-Aviator-Accessory/dp/B0BYMZBC14. Accessed 8 Aug. 2025.

“Boeing 727 VP-BDJ: The Original Trump Force One.” MotoArt PlaneTags, 14 Jun. 2019, https://planetags.com/blogs/planetags-blog/boeing-727-vp-bdj-the-original-trump-force-one.

Hettena, Seth. “The Trouble With MeidasTouch.” Rolling Stone, 8 Apr. 2021, https://archive.ph/yrlnb#selection-1495.0-1498.0.

“Jeffrey Epstein’s Private Islands Put up for Sale for $125m.” BBC News, 24 Mar. 2022. www.bbc.co.uk, https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60856925.

Jones, Michael Grabell, Sebastian. “Off the Radar: Private Planes Hidden From Public View.” ProfessionalPublica, 8 Apr. 2010, https://www.propublica.org/article/off-the-radar-private-planes-hidden-from-public-view-040810.

Shalal, Andrea, and Nandita Bose. “Trump Says He Turned down Invitation to Epstein’s Island.” GWN, 29 Jul. 2025. www.reuters.com, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-says-he-turned-down-invitation-epsteins-island-2025-07-28/.

Shepardson, David. “FAA Moves to Protect Aircraft Owners Private Information.” GWN, 28 Mar. 2025. www.reuters.com, https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/faa-moves-protect-aircraft-owners-private-information-2025-03-28/.

Thompson, Polly. “Trump Seemingly Sold One of His Private Jets to a Major Republican Donor.” Business Insider, 30 May 2024, https://archive.ph/Xtr8D#selection-1551.0-1564.0.

WIRED. “We Tracked Every Visitor to Epstein Island | WIRED.” YouTube, 22 Nov. 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjPHq-Ez0nc&t=141s.