What specific evidence did reporters use to verify or debunk Candace Owens’s timeline for Erika Kirk’s alleged actions?

1. What Owens publicly presented — flight IDs, overlap counts, and dates

Candace Owens laid out a granular timeline in podcasts and social posts: she named two Egyptian Hercules aircraft with registrations given as SU‑BTT (or SUBTT / SUBTTT variants in reporting) and SU‑BND (SUBND) and said those planes’ tracked movements “overlapped” Erika Kirk’s documented locations roughly 68–73 times between 2022 and September 2025, with about 29 of those instances also including Charlie Kirk ^{[1] [2] [3]}. Owens also asserted the planes were at Provo Airport on the day of the killing and released alleged rental‑car license plates she connected to people aboard those flights ^{[1] [7]}.

2. How reporters attempted to verify the aircraft-tracking claim

Coverage shows journalists relied on the same verifiable elements Owens cited: registration numbers and date ranges. Outlets reproduced Owens’s registration numbers and overlap totals to let readers judge the raw claim ^{[2] [3]}. Reporters framed those elements as testable because civil‑aviation trackers and public logs can show when specific tail numbers appear in flight data — a starting point for independent verification cited across summaries ^{[2] [1]}.

3. Limits of independent verification reflected in reporting

Multiple pieces note limitations: reporters summarized Owens’s claims but do not present published, independent flight‑data extracts in these stories; rather, they reproduce her counts (68–73 overlaps) and the registration identifiers she named ^{[1] [2] [3]}. None of the current items in our set publish the raw flight‑tracking screenshots, independent data pulls, or chain‑of‑custody details that would be needed to confirm Owens’s precise overlap count or her inference that the flights equate to Egyptian intelligence surveillance ^{[2] [1]}.

4. What fact‑checking or pushback appeared in coverage

Reporters and commentators also highlighted disagreements within conservative media about Owens’s framing. Some peers accused her of implying Erika Kirk’s involvement in Charlie Kirk’s death; Owens denied making that accusation and publicly challenged critics such as Ben Shapiro ^[6]. Other outlets noted she had “argued without evidence” that Turning Point USA was covering up internal involvement — a characterization presented as the outlets’ summary of her broader claims ^[8]. These pieces make clear that the flight overlaps, even if accurate, do not by themselves prove criminal involvement or motive ^{[8] [6]}.

5. Alternative explanations and unanswered questions reporters flagged

Reporters raised alternative possibilities implicitly by emphasizing that flight‑overlap counts are not direct proof of surveillance or intent: flights can be over the same places for benign logistical reasons, and matching approximate locations is not identical to proving targeted tracking. Coverage points to gaps Owens did not publicly close in these accounts — for example, independent confirmation of who was aboard the planes, corroboration tying the cited rental cars to Egyptian personnel beyond Owens’s assertions, and release of raw flight logs ^{[7] [1]}. Available sources do not publish those corroborating documents ^{[2] [3]}.

6. What this means for readers and next steps

Readers should treat Owens’s timeline as a set of verifiable claims (tail numbers, dates, overlap totals) that, per current reporting, have been publicized but not fully reproduced with independent flight‑data evidence in the cited coverage ^{[2] [1]}. Journalistic follow‑up would require independent pulls of ADS‑B/flight records, passenger manifests or other official logs, photographic/video corroboration of the alleged license plates at specific times, and statements from authorities — items not found in the current reporting set ^{[7] [3]}. Until such documents are published, the overlaps Owens cites remain an asserted pattern, not a judicially or investigatively established fact ^{[1] [8]}.