Venezuela’s state owned airline Conviasa avoids sanctions by servicing aircraft in Iran
Venzuela’s state owned airline Conviasa had her Airbus A340 aircraft registered YV1004 serviced in Iran despite United States sanctions not allowing this. A video posted on Twitter showing the aircraft was digitally modified to hide the aircraft was serviced in Tehran.
The Conviasa Airbus A340 aircraft was last spotted by flighttracking website Flightradar24 in July 2019 when flying in Iranian airspace. According Planespotters.net the aircraft was stored at Tehran airport since July 14, 2019. However the sole reason to fly the aircraft to Tehran was for heavy maintenance.
In a video posted on Twitter by Ramón Celestino Velázquez, the president of Conviasa, the airline however pretends the aircraft was undergoing maintenance in a Conviasa hanger. The Conviasa titles shown in the video were added later. It is very obviously the titles are not really attached to the hangar as they move. A copy of the video can be watched here.
The Tweet by the Conviasa president is translated as:
We are very happy with the start of the functional tests of our Airbus 340-200 “Libertador Simón Bolívar” after 3 months of integral intervention, thanks to the effort of our technical staff. Soon we will cross new skies with this aircraft!
The ‘integral interventions’ is technical maintenance to the aircraft. Mind the “our technical staff”. In fact the maintenance was done by technicians of Iranian Mahan Air!
Mahan Air hangar
Pictures showing the Mahan Air hangar at Tehran airport show the exact same hangar as were the Conviasa aircraft was seen in the video Tweeted by the Conviasa president at December 30, 2019.
The screenshot on the left was taken from the video posted on Twitter. The photo published by Jetphotos.net on the right shows the same Mahan Air hangar. The coloured squares highlight the same area’s.
Conviasa hide some details in the video to make sure it was not revealed the aircraft was in Iran. The logo on the jacket of the man walking next to the aircraft has been blurred. The video was posted in low resolution quality to prevent details. A part on the lower lefthandside is blurred as well.
However Conviasa forgot to blur the logo on the white pushback truck. This provides more evidence the aircraft was serviced in Iran.
The white truck seen attacked to the nosewheel of the aircraft has a triangle shaped logo attached to it. This is the logo of the ‘Saman Air Services‘ company. This is an Iranian handling company which offers all kind of services at Iranian airports to airlines. Saman Air Services is not active outside Iran.
In October 2019 it was announced that Conviasa and Mahan Air started a new alliance. In July 2018, the United States Department of Treasury, named Mahan Air “an Iranian airline previously designated in connection with Iran’s support for international terrorism.” Before the US sanction became effective the same aircraft was maintained by SR Technics in Switzerland.
Return flight to Caracas
At January 3, 2020 the aircraft was spotted by flighttracking websites shortly after departure from Damascus airport. After maintenance in Tehran the aircaft first flew to Damascus for refuelling. Other destinations could not be used because of US sanctions. Damascus will be a new destination for Conviasa starting March 2020.
Interesting to note the flight from Tehran to Damascas seems to be not tracked.
The route of flight VO121 after departure from Damascus looked like this.
