In the final hours of February 28, images shared on social media reveal the dismantling of the Boeing 747-300M of the Venezuelan airline Emtrasur Cargo that was involved in a diplomatic dispute and remained detained in Buenos Aires for almost two years until the confiscation order requested by the United States government was executed, to which it departed on February 12.
The aircraft, with registration YV3531, operated that day the flight identified as TYSON23 and took off at 01:21 local time. According to various sources, TYSON is a callsign reserved for flights operated by United States government and security agencies.
Based on what could be observed in the tracking systems, the plane avoided flying over Venezuelan airspace, and its trail is lost entering continental US territory over Florida.
Later, it was confirmed that the aircraft was stored and dismantled at the Dade-Collier Transition and Training Airport (TNT), located 58 kilometers from the city, managed by the Miami-Dade Aviation Department (MDAD), a governmental entity.
Brief History of Emtrasur’s Boeing 747
The Boeing 747-300M had been detained in Ezeiza since June 2022, the terminal it arrived at after being diverted to Córdoba due to bad weather and taking off towards Montevideo, Uruguay, to refuel.
Faced with Uruguay’s refusal to grant overflight rights, the plane diverted to Ezeiza, where the Argentinian authorities, who noted irregularities in the passenger manifest, awaited it.
From the investigation into the origin of the aircraft, it was determined that it had been acquired from an Iranian airline through a triangulation with a United Arab Emirates company, since Iran is prohibited from trading U.S.-origin goods for being included in the list of countries and entities sanctioned by the OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control).
This agency, dependent on the Department of Justice, included Mahan Air in its list of organizations that provide direct or indirect assistance to terrorist groups in 2011, and also added Qeshm Fars Air, a company controlled by Mahan Air, in 2019.
The captain declared on the flight of the 747-300M was a shareholder and board member of Qeshm Fars Air and commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods / IRGC-QF.
Conviasa, the Venezuelan state airline, had been added to the OFAC list in 2020, although in November 2023 the agency eased some of the restrictions to allow maintenance and procurement of parts for its Embraer 190 fleet.
This violation of the sanctions led the United States to request the Argentine justice to confiscate the aircraft, a request that was granted in January 2024.
The measure generated strong protests from the Venezuelan government, which considers the confiscation as a theft of legitimately acquired material. Beyond the complaints and campaigns carried out by the Maduro administration, the transfer process of Emtrasur’s Boeing 747 was completed without major issues.
The Previous History
The Boeing 747-300 of EMTRASUR was originally delivered to the French airline UTA in January 1986 with the registration F-GETA. In 1992, it joined the fleet of Air France, for which it operated until November 2006.
In 2007, it was acquired by the Armenian airline Bluesky and was re-registered as EK-74713, almost immediately beginning operations for the Iranian airline Mahan Air with the registration EP-MND, until it came into the possession of Emtrasur Cargo in January 2022.
According to Cirium Fleet Analyzer, the aircraft accumulated a total of 14,577 cycles and 84,830 flight hours.
