The Wings of War

When Mahan Air, Iran’s largest private airline, bought nine used Airbus aircraft last May, Iranians celebrated the opportunity to upgrade their country’s aging, sanctions-hit commercial fleet. They felt corresponding disappointment, therefore, when a fortnight later, the U.S. Departments of Commerce and Treasury blacklisted all nine planes and vowed to impound them. Their frustration is understandable, but doesn’t change one basic fact:

Iran’s transport practices, not its old planes, are putting its skies and ours at risk.

Even after the nuclear deal in Vienna lifted restrictions on the sale of passenger aircraft in Iran, Mahan Air remains sanctioned under U.S. law. Mahan Air is expanding its European destinations regardless, a sure sign that U.S. sanctions against it will be ignored. Europe should closely monitor Mahan aircraft landing at its airports, as there is no indication that the airline has changed its harmful practices.

Mahan Air has habitually used the same planes to transport passengers to and from Europe, to ferry weapons and military personnel around the region, and to carry nuclear and ballistic missile technology to the Islamic Republic. Its commercial planes are accessories to the Syrian regime’s war crimes, and help Hezbollah fight alongside Syria’s army while expanding its 100,000-strong rocket and missile arsenal for war against Israel. These arms shipments are a blatant violation of the arms embargo imposed by UN Security Council Resolution 1747, expanded by UN Security Council Resolution 1929 and retained under the nuclear deal for another five years. They also violate the spirit, if not the letter, of Europe’s ban on arms exports to Syria.

The UN embargo prohibits Iranian airlines from transporting arms as cargo. The airlines thus falsify flight manifests, lying about the nature of their cargo, and concealing flight records to Syria, all in contravention of international aviation standards. Expecting Iranian and Syrian civil aviation authorities to enforce such standards is absurd. It is up to European authorities to ensure compliance with international standards by ramping up inspections of Iranian aircraft and barring planes and airlines from European airspace that are found to be in violation.

* * *

The Treasury reaffirmed Mahan Air’s supporting role for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) weapons shipments to Syria and Hezbollah in 2013, when it listed all of Mahan Air’s fleet. When, more recently, Treasury blacklisted the airline’s new aircraft last May, it explained that “Mahan Air works with the IRGC-QF to ferry operatives, weapons, and funds in support of the Assad regime on its flights to Syria, and also provides transportation services to Lebanese Hezbollah, which has been separately designated as a terrorist group.”

Mahan’s more recent illicit behavior is exemplified by its flights to Syria. The airline’s website no longer includes Damascus among its destinations, but flights flagged for the Syrian capital continue, sometimes landing in the regime stronghold of the port city Latakia or at military airfields. Those same passenger planes delivering weapons to the Syrian regime then quickly return to Tehran, where they pick up unsuspecting passengers and continue to Europe.

In recent months a number of Mahan Air aircraft have flown to Damascus, offloaded cargo, returned to Tehran, and from there traveled to international destinations, including Europe. Flight history information available at PlaneFinder shows that Mahan Air flies to Damascus several times a month, sometimes with long intervals between flights. Its most recent flights to Damascus were on August 20 and 27, after a three-week hiatus.

According to data collected from Flight-Radar24, on June 9, a Mahan Air aircraft left for Damascus in the early afternoon, landed back in Tehran in the evening and by early morning was en route to Munich. Another Mahan Air plane flew to Damascus on July 7, and after returning to Tehran, also continued on to Munich. A third plane landed in Damascus in the early hours of July 26, flew to Shanghai and back, and landed in Athens on July 28. Then, on August 27, another Mahan Air aircraft returned from Damascus in the late afternoon, left for Najaf, in Iraq, in the early morning and, upon returning to Tehran, quickly departed for Yerevan, in Armenia.

What is true for Mahan Air is also true for Iran’s national carrier Iran Air.

In June 2011, the U.S. Treasury designated Iran Air under an executive order aimed at freezing the assets of proliferators of weapons of mass destruction and their supporters.

According to the designation, Iran Air displayed contempt for the basic rules of international aviation safety by systematically lying about the content of its cargo in order to transport rockets and missiles, as well as military personnel and weapons, to Syria on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard. The airline also transported dual-use raw materials suitable for military applications, in violation of the UN arms embargo. Despite those violations, Iran Air is now slated to be delisted once the nuclear deal is implemented. Iran has already announced that it plans to purchase 90 new planes a year from Boeing and Airbus once sanctions are lifted.

Mahan Air and Iran Air are known to have violated international aviation safety rules, and, in doing so, have become accessories to war crimes, proliferation, and the violation of an international arms embargo. Why is Europe allowing them to continue flying, and even expanding routes to the Continent?

Emanuele Ottolenghi is a senior fellow at Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where Benjamin Weinthal is a research fellow. Follow them on Twitter @eottolenghi and @BenWeinthal