Stories
Syrianair, B.747SP, Munich Riem 1985 (WS) Other than the Ocean liners and the grand expresses of the past, air travel has not (yet?) been the matter of fanciful stories, from romantic to surrealistic. A movie showing Marilyn Monroe sitting in an airliner was almost an exception. The chance for a press photographer had always been the arrival of a star diva on an airport when she was descending the stairs after leaving the plane (what a pity that those stairs of fame have widely disappeared). Then the flight has become a matter of our life and stories around it must not be invented. They are present. A magazine quoted a Maharani saying that after a trans-continental flight she is staying for days in the hotel, for her soul must go to meet her again. And flying can cause anxiety. A wonderful lady hated flying since her fiancé, an air force pilot, has been killed by a crash. Nevertheless, many years after, she took a flight from Europe to South America in order to save a friend, who almost had stranded among the Brazilian gold-diggers, she suffered a stroke of apoplexy during disembarkation at Recife, but she rescued him and remained his guardian angel lifelong. When a Lufthansa A380 on a Frankfurt – Shanghai flight landed for the first time in Siberia at Novosibirsk (reported by AZ on Nov13, 2017), a case of medical emergency was the reason. A remarkably good flight was reported by the media in 2006: On New Year’s Day a mother gave birth to a baby in a plane’s toilet on a Lyon – La Reunion flight. A doctor was present and the child is well. Another nice story was reported by Bild (Nov11, 2018): After a Philippine Airlines plane had started, a baby wept over hunger. The despaired mother could not breast-feed the child, but stewardess Patrisha Organo, a young mother, took the bawler to her breast, the child sucked and it fell asleep peacefully. An exclusive flight to somewhere is a privilege for VIPs. Sometimes not: On a regular Egyptair flight from Aswan to Luxor, the plane was filled with a tourist group going to its final destination Cairo. The author was the only passenger having booked for the intermediate stop at Luxor. The friendly Captain informed that the stop was “only for you” – and the crowd of people at the airport stared at the sole passenger leaving the 737 there, who might he be… Harmless was also the story of our friend, when he sat on his pre-booked business class seat and a gentleman came, stating: “That’s my seat, I am a frequent-flyer, always sitting there.” – “Today not”, was the answer. The frequent-flyer ordered office staff out of the Frankfurt terminal to come, the staff controlled the booking, asked if he is truly Herr Merkel, and he must not leave his seat – today not. A story for the media had become the forced removal of an aged passenger from a plane by security officers, whereupon Financial Times (April28, 2017) reported that this airline “said it would offer up to $10,000 to passengers who voluntarily gave up their seats on overbooked flights (…). Overbooking is a tool used by airlines to maximize revenue.” We were lucky when we once traveled as tourist group passengers, underdogs. We reserved a window seat, paid an extra charge, but at Beijing airport the friendly Chinese lady informed that the computer had not registered the payment, neither a seat reservation and finally she gave us a window seat. The heads of state of course have official government aircraft for their own use – or misuse. The Caravelle TL-AAI of Air Centrafrique got the label “Republique Centrafricaine” and finally, in 1975, “Empire Centrafricaine” for emperor Bokassa. But also in Europe the use or misuse of an aircraft is good for a scandal, like in the case of a German minister decades ago, who always took a military plane for her weekend trips to Switzerland. Unlucky was Romania’s dictator Ceausescu who fled from the anti-communist rebellion in 1989 by helicopter to Targiviste, but as the army “had restricted flying in Romania’s airspace” (according to Wikipedia), he could not escape and was executed together with his wife on Christmas day. More lucky had been the king when he fled from Bucharest on New Year’s Day 1948 by train (and decades later a venerable Romanian lady told that she did it the same day, the same way). Iraq’s tyrant Saddam Hussein had “only” a small Falcon 50 business jet, which was grounded in Jordan shortly after the U.S. invasion in 2003. Sin Sad, created by Libya’s Qadhafi government, appeared with an IL-62M of Yana with Cambodia registration and with the IL62M/VIP 5A-DKR, which has brought hostages back from the Philippines and then Qadhafi’s son to Germany. Little Swaziland concluded the acquisition of an Airbus A340-300 from China Airlines to be equipped as a VIP jet for replacing the king’s MD-87, being too small for his many women, as media assumed it. A president of Sri Lanka wanted to travel in a more modest way by making a short-term booking of 35 seats aboard a SriLankan plane on a London – Colombo flight. It was not possible, for the plane was fully booked – whereupon the British SriLankan chief executive Peter Hill was fired. A disgraceful story was published by Frankfurter Allgemeine (May22, 2018): Three deputees of the German nationalist minority party AfD got a flight aboard the private jet D-BFIL to Russia in Feb 2017, the 25,000 euro fare paid by the Russian taxpayers. When in 2018 the German government plane “Konrad Adenauer” could not fly home from Bali, the minister of finance bought tickets for a regular flight, while some employees had to remain behind (so reported by Bild, Oct15, 2018). A month after, Angela Merkel started to travel to the G20 summit in Buenos Aires, but “Konrad Adenauer” had a defect, the A340 landed at Cologne and the chancellor lady had to take a regular flight to Buenos Aires. Mexico’s president Nieto arrived in Buenos Aires with the governmental B.787, but the next day his leftist successor announced to sell off that “palace of the skies”. Already before, little Croatia had decided for giving away its government fleet. And there are also friendly stories: When in 2010, due to the volcanic ash cloud from ‘Mount Inpronouncable’ of Iceland, Angela Merkel’s return flight on an official visit to America was diverted to Lisbon and finally to Italy, she did not order a military plane for going to Berlin, but she chartered a bus. Decades ago, Pope Johannes Paul Wojtyla of Poland took not always Alitalia for his official visits, but also LOT, the airline of his home country. About a flight back from Warsaw, the journalist A. Englisch reported: “The stewardesses served water, beer, wine, champagne and then a happy, exhausted crowd of journalists shouted: ‘Johnny-Paul, you are the greatest!”
Not all the stories are so nice. A special sort of air traffic is sex tourism, filling planes on the way from Europe to Thailand, from North America to Latin America or from Japan to Taiwan and to the Philippines, organized by mobster gangs. “One new sphere of operations is Uzbekistan, from which the Yamaguchi-gumi has been known to charter direct flights – perhaps to transport Uzbek women for prostitution”, reported Newsweek (Dec17, 2007). Trafficking children into sex business, mainly out from CIS to Europe and Mideast or from South East Asia to Japan, is an even worse form of slavery. Another hazardous sort of business is drug travel. During the hippies’ era, the Syrianair B.747SP, nicknamed the “Junkies’ Jumbo”, was well known for drug trips from Europe to South Asia. More mysterious is drug smuggling by air, described by media reports. Around 1960 the bosses of Beirut and Sicily and the so-called “pope” of Marseilles took the plane, while the stuff was carried by sea. Munich, at that time still the destination of trains from Istanbul, was chosen as a starting-point for drug dealers, but they ended in jail and then Amsterdam became their “paradise”. Cosa Nostra and the Sicilian mafia dislodged the French connection and in 1982 an Alitalia plane brought the body of the last one of the Inzernillo clan in a coffin from New York home to Palermo – decapitated. In Bolivia before the military coup of 1980, more than half a ton of coca stuff was found aboard a plane of former president Banzer’s staff. “But two weeks before the coup, a fanatic mob attacked the prefecture in the drug city Santa Cruz and burned all the files and evidence (‘Krieg dem Rauschgift’, 1980). In Panama, the CIA paid M.A. Noriega for infiltrating the cocaine cartels and in 1983 he became the leader of the country. But after a connection to the Colombian cartel of Pablo Escobar was discovered, he was overthrown by U.S. forces. In 2011 he landed in Panama aboard a regular Iberia plane and was carried to a prison in his home country. During the 90s the Mexican “Lord of the Skies” Carillo Fuentes moved tons of cocaine by a fleet of B.727s from Colombia to the USA. In 1995 an old Caravelle ex-Iberoamericana was equipped with a falsified Colombian registration, loaded with cocaine and started northbound. After landing on a dry lake near Todos Santos in Baja California, Mexico, the freight was taken over by armed smugglers, the plane was broken to pieces and a bulldozer “buried” it (LJ, Jan1996). After the mysterious death of Carillo, “El Chapo” Guzman of Mexico became the king in this business and innumerable people were murdered. In 2017 he was extradited to the USA. Smuggling from Afghanistan, the global leader in opium production, via Kyrgyzstan or Tajikistan was a matter of its own, financing the Taliban. The USA was entered by heroin couriers via Africa aboard Nigerian planes. About an airline Gabon Express, which crashed one of the last Caravelles, R.E.G. Davies reported that “the owners were convicted of drug running.” Airborne “mules” came from Poland when this country had not yet been drug-suspicious. The bodies of hundreds of dead mules, who contained half a kilo of heroin pellets in their stomach, were repatriated from USA to Colombia. Brazil and mainly Guatemala have become important drug dealing places, while in Europe Lisbon opened the door for drug smuggling by the ‘Ndrangheta’ of Milan (so reported by Der Spiegel). About the cocaine routes to Europe, the Economist informed: “By virtue of a simple fact, the international airport in the capital of Sierra Leone, Freetown, was until recently a paradise for smugglers: It had no scanners (…). By some estimates, a quarter of all European cocaine arrives via Africa. The common route is from Guinea-Bissau to Mali and Niger and onward to Libya and Egypt. (… In 2009) a burned-out Boeing 727 from Venezuela was found in the sands of north-eastern Mali. It had been stuffed to the gills with cocaine.” Der Spiegel 25/2015 informed that almost every week some drug smugglers were on board planes from Curacao. It is a part of the Dutch kingdom and so its inhabitants did not need a visa for entering Europe. The cocaine has come from Colombia via Venezuela by boat. Then Bogota’s Aeropuerto El Dorado was described (by NTV) as a center for drug smuggling mainly to Mexico and Spain, but the report showed the body scanners and pointed out smugglers’ imprisonment for years. From Mideast, the Khaleej Times reported in 2015 that the Dubai Court has sentenced a Nigerian and an Afghan to a 10-year imprisonment for cocaine smuggling. “It was after midnight when the accused arrived, on a visit visa, from Brazil. No drugs were found on him or in his luggage. However, capsules were detected in his gut after we subjected him to an X-ray scan”, a customs officer told the prosecutor. For China, “Southeast Asia’s Golden Triangle remains the main source of heroin”, reported the Global Times (March28, 2017), continuing: “Opium and heroin from the Golden Crescent areas of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran are also smuggled into China …” Welt am Sonntag reported in 2018 (March04) that in late 2016 the Russian ambassador in Buenos Aires discovered twelve suitcases full of cocaine hidden in the embassy, he let displace it by flour, but nothing happened until in 2017 an investigator sent the suitcases by government plane RA-96023 (?) to Moscow as a trap, and suspects were arrested. Also other illicit trade takes the plane. Decades ago, Pushpaka, a small carrier from India, was prevented from continuing its Caravelle flights to the Arabian peninsula, being accused of illegitimate transports. In 1984 Sabena was accused of having transported ivory, being illegal in order to stop decimation of elephants. Traffic of African gems for guns went by air via Antwerp, Tel Aviv or New York. Legal diamond transports were handled e.g. between the Namibian Restricted Areas and Windhoek by military helicopters and then to the Central Selling Organization at London by private planes, rather secretly. In Poland after liberation there was still the Soviet base at Legnica and smuggling by air had been its task. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, a new mafia had emerged in the Russian army base at Wuensdorf near Berlin, which existed still for a while. Die Zeit published in 1991 a report by Janusz Tycner, stating that it was a profitable business to rent a railway wagon, to unload its freight at Ulan Bator to a chartered plane of MIAT to fly to Bratsk. On a military air base the cargo would be received by Red Army officers and transferred to the local mafia, which is guaranteeing protection and untroubled business for a fee of 30%. Finally, Vladimir Putin undertook cracking down on corruption – and it proved a hard task. In 2006 Newsweek reported: “When a shipment of 167,500 Motorola mobile phones worth $19 million was confiscated at Moscow airport in March, police initially told bewildered Motorola reps that Customs duties hadn’t been paid. Then the authorities changed their story, the company says. The phones were allegedly emitting unsafe levels of radiation, police claimed, and 50,000 handsets had been destroyed on health grounds. When the company produced a sheaf of certifications showing that its product was safe, a mysterious Moscow-based company filed suit that Motorola was in breach of a Russian patent – and demanded money. The last straw came this spring, when execs discovered that the phones confiscated by Customs last year were being dumped on Moscow’s thriving black market…” At Lagos in Nigeria the clans had an easier way: “Aircraft were even stopped while taxiing and their cargo holds were raided”, reported Airport News, before a new president Obasanjo has changed the situation in 1999. A harmless problem seems to be the loss of luggage. According to a study by the Air Transport Users Council, in 2007 more than 42 million pieces of luggage had been lost on flights or they arrived late. In 2011 the popular press reported the loss of a passenger’s $5,000 watch at a German airport’s security check (in Shanghai we could have bought a falsified Rolex at $10). Not every case was so harmless: An archeologist tried to carry treasures from Nicaragua abroad, he handed over the luggage to the airline staff – and the treasures were never seen again, for the “staff members” were disguised unknowns. More dangerous was the content of a passenger’s hold luggage on an Egyptair flight from New York to Cairo: Two handguns, 250 bullets, two swords and 11 knives, acquired in the USA due to the weapons-friendly laws. The magazine Airports of the World (July 2010) reported: “He had been allowed to board in New York because in the USA arms are allowed to be transported so long as they are declared and are in the passenger’s hold luggage… Unfortunately for Mr. M. it is illegal to import weapons into Egypt without a permit” – and he was arrested. Even in the age of Internet, some money transfer is done by air travel, the millions hidden in the hand luggage. Many years ago a Greek told that his father had to carry money for some industry to Nigeria, at Lagos airport the partners awaited him with their limousine, but they were not his partners, they captured him. Fortunately they were not clever enough to take his mobile phone, neither to discover the money hidden in the double bottom of his suitcase. He could call for rescue and he survived. A still more difficult way out of her country had the widow of Nigeria’s late dictator Abacha. In 2001 her 38 suitcases were confiscated at the airport of Lagos. They had been packed with money. Newsweek reported in 2008 another case: “Recently, authorities stopped a Venezuelan-American businessman at Buenos Aires’ international airport in August with a suitcase stuffed with nearly $800,000 in cash – allegedly from Chavez’s associates and earmarked for the campaign of Argentina’s future president…” Odd stories in America were delivered by parachutists: In 1972 a blackmailer took 200,000 dollars from United Airlines and parachuted over Nevada. A hijacker captured a jetliner in Pennsylvania, extorted $300,000, parachuted over Honduras and then gave himself up to the police. An easier way had gangsters who robbed the Lufthansa cargo center at New York JFK of $5 million on Dec11, 1978 – so reported by Bild (March07, 2018), describing another robbery of $5 million: A pickup with falsified security guard label entered Sao Paolo Viracopos airport, the armed gangsters overpowered the true security guards, robbed a little container which was unloaded from an MD-11 freighter and escaped… More serious is arms brokering. Some ways to provide arms for genocide were described by Dan Smith in ‘War and Peace’: “A ship loaded with Serbian small arms, on its way to Somalia, was inspected and held by Seychelles authorities. Two Air Zaire planes flew the weapons from the Seychelles to Goma airport in Zaire. The arms were then transferred to Gisenyi, just across the border inside Rwanda.” A cargo plane, registered in Africa, but based in the UK, did fly empty from Ostend in Belgium to Tirana in Albania, where arms were loaded and then flew to Goma, with a refueling stop at Cairo. Mysterious were the flights of Russian arms trader Viktor Bout. Being a former officer and KGB secret service agent, he started some cargo air business in the early 1990s, using abandoned military planes. “U.S. officials say Bout built an empire in the 1990s flying weapons to the Taliban and African dictators and rebel groups”, reported Newsweek in December 2004, when Bout’s aircraft were spotted in Iraq (!) and “…president of Air Bas, the charter airline in question – acknowledges he was in contact with Bout, but says Bout is not the owner of the firm.” Flight Intl (March16, 2004) described Air Bas with one An-24RV and one IL-18D prop plane (previously also Russian jets, registered with Equatorial Guinea), based at Sharjah, “formerly known as Air Cess… General Manager Victor Bout.” Der Spiegel (22/2005) reported: “In the 90s his aircraft supplied the Afghan Taliban as well as their enemies of the Northern Alliance, then the Angolan Unita rebels and the forces of Liberian tyrant Charles Taylor. Later he shifted his commercial activities to the Congo, Sudan, Rwanda and Uganda.” Bout was described as a careful man, but once in 2008 he was not careful enough and his final extradition to the USA disappointed the Russian weapons industry. “After two buyers claiming to be Colombian guerillas approached him last November, Bout tried to double-check their identities using photographs of known leaders”, reported The Washington Post (March07, 2008), continuing: “Yet the prospect of a $15 million arms deal lured Bout from Moscow to Thailand this week for a final meeting with buyers. 800,000 missiles, 30,000 Kalashnikovs and 5 tons of explosives should be parachuted over Colombia for supporting the drug guerilla. However, the meeting turned out to be part of a four-month sting by Drug Enforcement Administration with secret help from security officials in four other nations. Bout, dressed in scruffy khakis and an orange polo shirt, was arrested at his Bangkok hotel yesterday by the Royal Thai Police...” The International Herald Tribune quoted him saying: “The game is over.” Mysterious were also the Tu-154 and IL-62 jets in “Air Pass” livery. Three IL-62M planes were listed as being sold to Air Pass/ Air Cess, then appearing with Swaziland and Central African Republic registrations. Later an ex-Air Cess IL-18 could be watched in Afghanistan with a Kazakhstan registration. A Tu-154 was seen at Paris on a state visit, sporting the label “Central African” and also on Air Maldives flights. In 2000 an IL-62M in Air Pass colors surprised the author at Banjul airport in Gambia, now with the registration C5-GNM and the label Gambia New Millennium Air. Reportedly this airline and a Baba Jobe lost the license, being accused of connections with Liberia’s late tyrant Charles Taylor, banned by the USA. Around 2011 the C5-GNM still with the Gambia New Millennium Air label was watched at Banjul, stored out of service. In 2012 an IL-62M C5-RTG was parked there as a government plane …
In 2013 Sueddeutsche Zeitung (April06) reported the stop of an Ilyushin freighter at the old Bangkok Don Muang airport on 11 December 2009 and the discovery of 49 military missiles on board. The plane had started at Kiev’s freight terminal Gostumel and landed at North Korea’s Pyongyang after a refueling stop at Fujeira. Continuing the flight via Bangkok, Colombo, Fujeira and Kiev to the final destination Tehran was planned. After the illegal arms transport was discovered, the five crew members were arrested for three months and as initiator was found one of the thousands of letter-box companies, all residing at Queen Street in Auckland, New Zealand. The most dangerous business for mankind is trafficking blueprints for nukes. In any case it’s easy to understand that those dealers cannot have interest in becoming a celebrity like decades ago arms dealer Kashoggi, who has owned a DC-8, equipped like a flying palace. Also Jumbo jets can be “smuggled”. LJ reported in November 2006: “The two ex-United Airlines B.747-400, which have been intended for French Eagle Aviation, had got (…) a blue/white ‘Blue Sky’ livery, unknown until now.” Then an airline in Iran introduced a 747-400, despite the international sanctions, and LJ stated in January 2007: “It’s one of the Jumbo jets registered with Armenia, which recently appeared with a ‘Blue Sky’ livery and a British registration.” Later it was reported that ex-Lufthansa A300 planes were transferred via a Cirrus International, Bukovyna Airlines and Kyrgyztransavia. In 2010 Flight Intl described Vertir Airlines of Azerbaijan as a “Yerevan-based charter airline that functions primarily as a provider, on wet-lease, of Airbus and Boeing aircraft.” To get spare parts was not too difficult – once a 747-200, announced for an Indonesia flight, had a so-called intermediate stop in Iran, where it stayed for ever, delivering spare parts. In 2011 MD-80 operations by SkyWings of Greece for airlines in Iran were reported. Already before, Iran Air Tour had found an easier way to order what they wanted: Tupolev Tu-204 planes from Russia. More unpleasant was the story of the former German government VIP Airbus A310-300 10+22, “sold to Eastern Europe”, stored at Kiev and transferred to Iran with the witty registration EP-VIP, then wisely changed to EP-MXX. Unfortunately, the magazine Der Spiegel has published the sensation. Less striking was the story of an unknown Rajshahi Air of Bangladesh, which has flown an ex-Virgin Atlantic A340-300 to Tehran, where it was supposed to be handed over to Iran Aseman Airlines. That’s nothing compared to the acquisition of three ex-Qantas B.747-300s by Iran Air via Al Sayegh, previously registered with Burkina Faso and Gambia, the C5-SAM sporting colors of a Samair of Slovakia. A Chaba Airlines of Bangkok parked two ex-Lufthansa A-340s in Ukraine, at Christmas 2012 they flew to Kyrgyzstan for a Manas Airways and immediately they continued their flight to Tehran. In May 2013 LJ reported: “Aviatrans K from Kiev (…) is connected to Khors Air, which already has five A320s, operating in Iran. Planes of Asian Express Airlines of Tajikistan were watched in Iran flying for Qeshm Air, which used also Onur Air planes and announced flights to Europe with A330s. A Boeing 747 EP-MNA has got a Smile Air livery for a newcomer in Ghana, but in 2015 it was still parked at Tehran. After the demise of Iran’s Ahmadinejad, the sanctions were loosened and the new international routes of Mahan Air meant a deceitful hope of peace. The USA continued the embargo and hope for Airbus exports to Iraq was deceptive, for risking Airbus exports to the USA. In 2018 three ex-Rossiya A319s, stored at Budapest, got Tajik registration and were flown out – not to Tajikistan, but to Mashhad in Iran, supposed (by LJ, March 2018) to be for a “new” airline. An embargo was put also on Syria under the Assad dictatorship and it was reported how an A340 ex-Sri Lankan came to Syrian Air via Kazakhstan and Tehran. Concerning Qatar, Financial Times has informed: “Doha gave Syrian president Bashar al-Assad an Airbus in 2008, a sweetener to resolve a crisis in Lebanon …”
Secret and silent is another category of traffic, by intelligence officials, agents and prisoners – a stuff for spy novels. Sometimes not: Adolf Eichmann, one of Hitler’s holocaust organizers, had escaped after WWII to Argentina with a doubtful laissez-passer. In 1960 he was captured by Mossad and Shin Bet agents of Israel. Aboard a Bristol Britannia of El Al, which had arrived some days before on a special flight for some delegation, he was transported out of his paradise – narcotized and disguised in the uniform of the El Al crew (according to Wikipedia). After a refueling stop at Dakar, he landed in Israel and was sentenced to death. A nice story was the travel in 2011 of Daniel Barenboim, the famous pianist and conductor, an Israeli born in Argentina, for a concert in troubled Gaza. Entry was permitted only via Egypt. He and his orchestra arrived at the airport of El-Arish, improvised a concert in the terminal hall, but then they were interdicted from entering Gaza, for the death of bin Laden has created uncertainty. Finally the concert in Gaza took place. Music = peace. “Business as usual” were the stories concerning the fight against terrorism. A Lebanese living in Germany had been captured in Macedonia, carried by a “secret flight” to Afghanistan for interrogation and was then flown by a small jet to Albania, where he could take a plane to Germany. Sueddeutsche Zeitung (Jan14, 2005), reporting that story, asked: “Had it been that mini-jet, which the CIA reportedly is using for secret prisoner transfers? That’s a Gulfstream V turbojet with the registration N379P.” Newsweek (Feb28, 2005) wrote that a 737, tail number N313P, was owned “by Premier Executive Transport Services, a now-defunct Massachusetts-based company”, appearing in Romania, Cyprus, Jordan, Libya, Algeria and - Guantanamo. Frankfurter Allgemeine (Feb23, 2010) quoted an institution supposing that certain CIA planes (N63MU, N379P and N313P) had landed in Szymany, Poland, arriving in 2003 six times from Afghanistan and once from Morocco. The 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed reportedly said that during an interrogation in an unknown place he had seen a bottle with a Polish label. While some media got angry at the CIA, ignoring the atrocities of terrorism, European leaders wisely were satisfied with Condoleza Rice’s diplomatic assurances (and in the meantime the Lebanese “CIA victim” had set fire to a supermarket, according to Bild, May23, 2007). There are other flights, rather unknown, but legal. A report by n-tv showed pictures of a B.727 transporting convicted persons in the United States from one prison to another e.g. on account of a judicial hearing, of course under strongest security measures. There are several planes for this sort of service. Innocent prisoners of war had been the passengers of the first jetliner landing at Baghdad after the Iraq war in 2003. It was a Chapman Freeborn B.737, repatriating them from Tehran. Other flights, legal, but mysterious, have the purpose of exchanging imprisoned spies. In 2010 the Greek daily Ta Nea published a picture showing a Yak-42 of Rossiya with the registration RA-42446 by the side of a Vision Airlines B.767-200 (N766VA) at Vienna International airport. The 767, coming from New York LaGuardia, had carried ten released persons in exchange for four ones who arrived aboard the Yak, which carried the other ones to Moscow. Most famous within a spy sweep deal via Vienna had got an unsuccessful, but attractive spy lady, Anna Chapman, “gaining celebrity status”, as Wikipedia reported it. Among the most important “passengers” on exchange flights had been in 1962 the pilot of the American U2 reconnaissance plane, and in 1981 Guenter Guillaume, the East-German Stasi spy who had entered the German chancellor’s office. As Ta Nea commented, Berlin has ceased to be the place of exchange after German reunification and on that reason Vienna was chosen for the “last” flights symbolizing the end of the Cold War. Diplomatic arguing between the UK and Russia led on Easter 2018 to search through an Aeroflot plane at London Heathrow, insulting the Kremlin.
Of course it doesn’t mean the end of mysterious intelligence service flights. Ta Nea (July10, 2010) described the United Arab Emirates’ surveillance system and the use of drones in order to discover a possible attack by Iran. About the hi-tech necessary, the report continued, asking: “Israeli in the Emirates? Everybody in the intelligence service knows it.” They are calling them “the Mexicans. If necessary, Royal Jet, the air transport company of the ruling Sheikhs, is carrying these VIPs, of course incognito.” Arkia Israeli Airlines is a regular carrier, but World Airlines 2010 reported: “The airline also has dedicated divisions, including (…) security services.” And there are the immigrants. While Europe erected razor-wire fences at Ceuta, illegal immigrants arrived at airports with tourist visas. “According to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, increasing numbers of Pakistanis now use Africa as their stepping stone”, wrote Newsweek (June11, 2007), continuing: “Some fly first to East Africa or the Sahara. According to UN officials, some get visas to enter Mali, Guinea or Burkina Faso by air, and then go overland to the coast, where they are loaded onto ships.” Repatriating asylum seekers became a business for some airlines, well-known or unknown, such as the Spanish cargo carrier Swift Air or Air Madrid before bankruptcy. Worse is the situation of refugees. In the past, refugees left their country on foot (as the author’s mother had performed it with her only son, at that time seven years old, while his innocent father was imprisoned). In the jet age, air transport is involved. Australia has reopened a refugee camp on Manus Island, belonging to Papua New Guinea, in 2017 threatening the refugees. For the first time 19 refugees, coming from Sri Lanka and Iran, were flown to Manus, where they had to stay in tents, waiting for the decision over their right of asylum (Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Nov22, 2012). Australia has also a refugee camp on the island of Nauru. In 2015 the stories of refugees from war-ridden Syria filled the media – compare the chapter The Flight/ Conflicts. Decades ago, among all the refugees the absurdist destiny surely had Merhan Karimi Nessari from Iran: After his arrival at Paris Charles de Gaulle in 1988 he was forced to stay in the terminal for indefinite time, for he had neither the permit for entry, nor for leaving – the stuff for “Lost in Transit”, a Hollywood movie. A still more sad story was reported by SZ (May08, 2017): An Arabian lady at the age of 24, maltreated for being pushed into a forced marriage, tried to flee to Australia. During her stop on the Philippines she was arrested and handed over to Arabian family members. More lucky was the story of a young Arabian lady, reported by SZ (Jan12, 2018). Fleeing her family, she landed in Bangkok, was interrogated and then “smiling and cheerful”, as the boss of the immigration office said, she could fly to Toronto and prime minister Justin Trudeau was glad that she got asylum in Canada. A “kafkaeske” story, a sad one, was reported by the Express (Washington, March21, 2007), after a lady of India had died on a Delhi – London flight: “The economy section of the flight was full and the cabin crew needed to move the woman and her grieving family out of that compartment (into first class) to give them some privacy, the airline said.” The story was published under the headline. “And That’s Why You Didn’t Get an Upgrade.” A political story inspired the media in 2017. In February the North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s half-brother Kim Jong Nam died at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Poison was discovered, banned by the UN. Two suspected attractive ladies were arrested… Photophobia? In Germany still in the 1950s it was forbidden to take photographs of the country from aboard an airliner, for reportedly the state had sold the photo permissions to commercial enterprises. In the Soviets’ “DDR”, the Stasi secret service controlled photography and when a citizen with the permission to visit his relatives in West Germany has continued his journey by flying to Spain, he was arrested after his photographs were discovered. After 9/11 in many countries a hunt not only for terrorists, but also for hobby photographers started and at some hubs potential terrorists must no longer fear to get snapped by an enthusiast’s camera. In 2011 some people took photographs aboard an airliner departing from Denver and an “attentive” passenger informed the crew. The plane returned to the gate, an investigation was started and finally the destination was reached with several hours delay and at an immense loss for the airline. Was it caused by ‘advocatophobia’? In the USSR an enthusiast once had got permission to take photographs at an air force base, only for being arrested and exchanged against a true KGB spy, sitting in jail in a Western country. In India in the past, around 1,000 dollar fees and bribes were necessary for taking photographs of airliners. A team found a cheaper way by taking pictures at Mumbai airport from a slum, or from the terrace of a 500-dollar-roomrate hotel. Then somewhere it was published that photography became allowed, but in a Delhi hotel Englishmen were arrested after they had asked for a room with airport view. In Mexico cameras were confiscated and probably sold on the black market. In Saudi Arabia your camera may be taken away more quickly than elsewhere, as a traveler stated it. Nevertheless on many hubs in many countries, photographers are welcomed. However, www.spotterswiki.com has informed (in 2014) about Paris Charles de Gaulle International: “Photography is prohibited at this airport.” On the other hand, an astonishing number of airliner photographs taken at Paris airports could be bought via Internet, of course against payment. In Israel, in the Soviets’ Moscow or in Fidel Castro’s Cuba, the author could photograph airliners without payment or official permission. Long ago via www.airliners.net it was stated: “04 Jul 2005… Hi! I noticed that Iberia flight attendants always tell you not to do photos from the landscape while flying.” The author made fanciful pictures of Caribbean landscape and a friendly Iberia lady even had upgraded us into business class… Flying over the Bahamas… (WS) |