Belarus regime sold the presidential Boeing 737 BBJ to Iran after US sanctions
Photo by Alex Pereslavtsev
A Boeing 737 BBJ registered EW-001PA used by president Alexander Lukashenko for his travels was flown at March 23, 2023 from Belarus to Iran. Likely the aircraft has been sold to an Iranian airline, despite US sanctions which forbid to sell aircraft to Iran. This happened two days after the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated this aircraft as blocked property.
The website of OFAC states:
EW-001PA is a Boeing 737 belonging to the Government of Belarus and used as the presidential aircraft for the U.S.-sanctioned leader of Belarus, Alyaksandr Hryhoryavich Lukashenka. Lukashenka has exclusive access to EW-001PA and other luxury aircraft and uses them for personal trips. Moreover, Lukashenka has used EW-001PA with his family and other members of his entourage for international travel.
OFAC is identifying EW-001PA as property in which Lukashenka, a person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to E.O. 14038, has an interest.
According Tweets by the Belarusian Hajun project EW-001PA took off at 15:11 on March 26 Minsk time from Minsk airport using flightnumber CPN2703. This callsign is used by Iranian airline Caspian Airlines. When the aircraft was flying over Kazakhstan it changed the hex code of the transponder. The aircraft was identified by flightradar as a Boeing 787 HZ-ARA operated by Saudia. The aircraft landed at Tehran Mehrabad airport. This airport is used by the Iranian air force and for government flights.
This all indicates a way to transfer the aircraft to Iran.
In the past many aircraft entered the fleet of Iranian airlines used dodgy proxy airlines and companies. An overview in this article.
