Posted on 06/18/2025 3:30:45 PM PDT by Mr. Mojo
At least three transport planes from China reportedly flew to Iran in the three days after Israel began attacking Iran’s nuclear program and military command structure, their cargoes and missions unknown.
The UK Telegraph reported on Tuesday that all three of the cargo planes “flew westward along northern China, crossing into Kazakhstan, then south into Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan,” and then dropped off radar screens as they approached Iran.
All three of the planes apparently filed false flight plans that showed their destination as Luxembourg, but none of them flew anywhere near Europe. Later flights from the same region did head toward Luxembourg, which is the home base of the company that operates the aircraft, Cargolux.
Cargolux, which is partially owned by a Chinese company, on Tuesday denied its planes entered Iranian airspace. The company blamed “faulty public tracking data” for creating the appearance of the planes surreptitiously flying into Iranian airspace.
All three of the planes were Boeing 747 cargo planes, which the Telegraph noted are “commonly used for transporting military equipment and weapons, and hired to fly government contract orders.”
Analysts doubted the three planes would be carrying anything quite so provocative as Chinese military equipment for Iran, although China has long supplied Iran with ballistic missile components. China has also attempted to disguise controversial shipments of military hardware to Iran and Libya as innocuous consumer goods, only to have the deception discovered by customs officials.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Perhaps they REMOVED things from Iran, like Chinese scientists and other support staff helping Iran with nukes, etc.
Yup.
“Perhaps they REMOVED things from Iran...”
Now you’re thinkin’...
Same thing with the Russian flights from Iraq to Syria back in 2003.
My $$:
Their latest air defense systems.
Waiting has dire consequences.
Is there proof those planes left Iran?
Apparently. they just closed the Strait of Hormuz.
Comment from another thread back when China bought about 10 of these:
...The 747 cargo version has a nose door allowing it to load oversized cargo for which freight airlines charge premium prices. The A380F will be more suited to carrying packages for UPS or FedEx than industrial cargoes that Cargolux and other freight lines carry. The A380F will have more range than the 747 Advanced freighter allowing nonstop freight service from the US to China, but most freight lines don’t care if they need to make an extra stop. Freighers are designed with less range than the passenger variants of the same aircraft so they can haul more weight. They also tend to have stronger landing gear in order to land with more weight. Passenger planes carry more fuel and burn it off before landing so they are lighter by the time they land.
6 posted on 7/21/2005, 7:21:28 AM by Paleo Conservative
Do you have a link to breaking news, dforest? Did I miss something?
Wouldn't Israel/US have prevented that? Lots of people online have been following this on FlightRadar, etc. so I'm sure Israeli/US intelligence has been following this too. On the other hand, we may have been allowing it if they were evacuating personnel, as suggested above.
My thought also
For taking heavy bulky cargo not passengers....
Maybe China is in the market for cut rate “strategic metal.” Or scrap to discretely reprocess.
Persian rugs to resell.
Flights (and also truck convoys) that a lot of people have conveniently forgotten.
“Perhaps they REMOVED things from Iran, like Chinese scientists and other support staff helping Iran with nukes, etc.”
Undoubtedly correct.
Or the Russian Su-35s Russia sold to China.
It has been a few years since I looked at this, but...I recall that the A380 was not structurally suited to be modified as a cargo carrier, except perhaps as a carrier of a high volume of smaller packages, not large cargos the way a 747, C-17, or even a C-5 might carry.
I could be wrong, but that is what I recall. Has something changed, like a new variant of the A-380 that I am unaware of?
China is filling the vacuum before Israel can... This should have been seen coming. Those should have been shot down “by accident” as soon as they entered Iranian air space.
There isn't a dedicated cargo variant of the Airbus A380. While Airbus did initially plan for an A380F freighter, it was ultimately canceled due to various factors including the weak freight market and design limitations of the A380. Although the A380 has a large cargo capacity, its design makes it more suitable for passenger transport than for dedicated cargo operations.
There is no doubt it is an impressively large bird, but cargo would not be its forte due to limitations.
Chinese knock offs of Russian systems that are proven failures—The AA system will be welcome and they might really work and take out a few Israeli F-16s. Too Little, Too Late.
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