Iran smuggles two planes from Lithuania, evading sanctions

Two Airbus A340s, belonging to Gambia’s leasing company Macka Invest, which were due to fly from Lithuania’s Šiauliai to Sri Lanka and the Philippines in late February, ended up in Iran.

Reports suggested that the aircraft transponders were switched off once they entered Iran.

Shortly afterwards, the aviation data platform ch-aviation reported that one aircraft landed at Tehran’s Mehrabad airport and the other one landed at the Konarak airport in Chabahar in the south of the country.

In this way, Mahan Air, an aviation company operating in Iran, retrieved two of its aircraft in circumvention of the existing US sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear program.

A third aircraft belonging to Macka Invest remained in Šiauliai. According to Aurelija Kuezada, director of Šiauliai Airport, it was not allowed to take off because of the spare parts it carried.

He said that the plane was due to fly to the Philippines, but we assume that it could have landed in Iran as well, and nothing could have prevented that.

lithuania’s state-owned navigation service provider, told that the three planes did not raise any suspicions and their movement outside Lithuanian airspace was within the competence of air navigation service providers in other countries.