So we’ve got an Antonov-12 seized in Kano with a load of guns heading for Equatorial Guinea. The Nigerian press have more; the Daily Independent says the aircraft made an unscheduled technical stop at 0400 local time, and that the Ukrainian crew and an unspecified Nigerian are in the hands of the State Security Service.…
Read More dad, won’t you get me out of this?OK, this space should be occupied by a visualisation showing time series of airlines in the Viktorfeed by week, which ought to show what happened to BGIA’s share of the business. But IBM ManyEyes is down or at least not up, the data hardly fits on an OpenOffice spreadsheet in any sensible way, so you’ll…
Read More no data for someNow here’s something. Remember British Gulf International? The first, founding mob in the Viktor Bout story. Still, as late as last year, by far the biggest source of dubious aircraft movements through the UAE, almost all going to markets in the War on Trrr. The data speaks for itself; between the Viktorfeed going live and…
Read More you know; you can’t go homeA little news from the rialto. We’re seeing more and more movements using the name “Sky Cabs”, with either Phoenix Aviation/AVE’s call sign PHW or else 2E. Interestingly, the company of this identity was shut down in Colombo after a horrible accident back in 2000. The matching ICAO code was SCB; we’ve not seen that…
Read More a remarkable number of Soviet celebritiesYou may have noticed that the Viktorfeed is down. The server it runs on was updated last night to the new version of Debian, including a new Python installation, and Something Went Wrong involving the conversion of strings to struct_time values. If you do this on my laptop:Python 2.5.1 (r251:54863, Jan 10 2008, 18:01:57)[GCC 4.2.1…
Read More failAn Ilyushin-76T formerly with GST Aero has been destroyed in an accident at Entebbe, crashing into Lake Victoria bound for Mogadishu with supplies for the Burundian military. Burundian and Ugandan officers were on board. The aircraft, S9-SAB serial number 73410301, was owned by Aerolift, a company banned in the EU which officially ceased operations in…
Read More candidOn the Viktorfeed – we’ve got a wave of aircraft leaving the UAE without saying where they’re going. Leaving tonight at 0100Z, there’s a gaggle of 8 aircraft from Phoenix Aviation, Sakavia, Sudan Airways, Red Star, and Kenuz. Eh what? There are also some given as supposedly private flights – one uses its registration as…
Read More MovementsThis may or may not be significant, but soon after the An-12 exodus from Sharjah, a dodgy An-24RV was seriously damaged in Boosaso, northern Somalia. Interestingly, this aircraft (serial 47309406) had been used by Aero-Service in the DRC and also by UTAGE in West Africa, the firm involved in the Christmas Day 2003 727 crash.…
Read More you fasten the triggers..It seems the UAE’s Antonov-12 ban is real. The shortage of inbound flights in the Viktorfeed continues; out of 57 overnight movements, in itself an unusual low, there were 10 inbounds after cleaning up the odd false positive. Here is a list: South-Airlines STH7002 Erbil Sharjah scheduled 1600Z Transaviaexport TXC1722 Kabul Sharjah scheduled 1500Z Safi…
Read More fly or dieI’m getting reports that the UAE authorities have revoked permission to fly for all Antonov-12s, and the substantial fleet based on Dubai and Sharjah has been given notice to quit last night. Apparently the proximate cause was a spate of embarrassing and perilous runway excursions, as well as the recent loss of an Antonov-12 with…
Read More when you feel the heat you’ve got to move your fleet (2)