The Telegraph publishes misleading report on alleged Chinese transport flights to Iran
At June 17 British newspaper The Telegraph published a nonsense story. The headline is ‘ China sends mystery transport planes into Iran‘ . The subtitle is ‘ Flight plans indicated a final destination of Luxembourg, but the aircraft appeared to have never flown near European skies’.
The article was written by Sophia Yan, Senior foreign correspondent. It was published at
17 June 2025 at 6:04pm BST.
The newspaper believes Cargolux B747 cargo aircraft which departed from China could transport military equipment and weapons, and hired to fly government contract orders to Iran.
It is totally nonsense. The article has a screenshot of flight CLX9877. This is a weekly flight from Shanghai via a stop in Ashgabat (ASB) to Luxembourg. While Flightradar states the flight is direct to Luxemburg all the time the flight makes a stop in Ashgabat. The flight from Ashgabat to Luxembourg is operated as flight CLX7AJ, CLX8XZ, CLX8FE and similar codes.
While most flights can be tracked until touching ground at Ashgabat, the June 16 flight could not be tracked until reaching the airport. Unclear why not but could be due to jamming. The aircraft with registration LX-OCV left Ashgabat at June 16. So it is 100% clear the aircraft never entered Iranian airspace.
The same story for flight Cargolux CLX9736 from Zhengzhou to Luxembourg. It always shows ‘ diverted’ to ASB. Long before the war between Iran and Israel started. On June 15 the B747 with registration LX-VCH as usual diverted to Ashgabat. Unlike other days the flight could not be tracked until the landing.
Flightradar24 at June 16, explained at X why the track of the flight shown in the Telegraph appeared to enter Iranian airspace.
At June 15, so two days before the article of The Telegraph, Cargolux posted this statement on the company Linkedin page.
