For us people living in United Arab Emirates and has traveled to Ras Al Khaimah via the 'E 11' road, the Il-76 cargo plane was always a mystery. The once magnificent beast of the sky is now left behind to rot, showing a withered sign of a hotel where now it is parked in front of.
This multipurpose, four engine strategic airlifter was designed by the Ilyushin design bureau. Birds now nest in her wings and the engines are long gone. Sun and desert were not kind to this beauty. Anything which could fetch money was stripped and sold. The airfield itself is in an equally bad condition which was closed around 6 years ago. The runway, hangars and offices lies in despair when another rusting AN-2 sits in the apron. Her current condition is a very sad sight for any aviation enthusiast, but she boasts a very interesting past.
According to several databases, the aircraft was build for Soviet Air Force in 1975 in a part of the old USSR which is now know as Uzbekistan. She flew as a military transporter under the registration CCCP-86715. After the collapse of the Soviet Union she flew for the Russian Air Force under the registration RA-86715. She was then sold to the Sharjah based airline Air Cess in early 90's. This is where the story gets interesting.
Air Cess was a company formed by Sergei Bout, brother of the notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout. Viktor Bout was the inspiration for the arms dealer character played by Nicolas Cage in the 2005 film Lord of War. Air Cess was originally set up in Belgium and the moved to Sharjah in 1997. The aircraft was re-registered as EL-RDT, and remained so until 1997. In 1998, she was again re-registered as 3D-RTT under the operator Air Pass. It was last registered to Centrafrican Airlines from 1998 to 2000. A vague outline of this registration is still visible in the airframe, along with the make and model.
Air Pass was disbanded when the South African Civil Aviation Authority charged Air Cess with 146 breached of Civil Aviation Law. In 1998, the company was reorganized and renamed Centrafrican Airlines which finally ended operation in 2001 when UAE government banned Bout from entering the country.
The UN has firmly stated that Centrafrican Airlines was indeed owned by Viktor Bout. Although he was not involved in the day-to-day management of the airline, investigators found that Bout signed the contracts for sale and purchase of aircraft as well as leasing documents for the company. The company was found to be tied with numerous illegal arms shipment to conflict zones.
The UN lists three addresses for the airline. One in Bangui, Central African Republic, as well as “PO Box 2190, Ajman, UAE” and “c/o Transavia Travel Agency, P.O. Box 3962, Sharjah, UAE”. Transavia is one of Bout’s oldest companies and provided cover for other Bout-controlled firms. In November 2005, the UN Security Council Committee (under resolution 1521) concerning Liberia and the regime of Charles Taylor, decided to add individuals and entities to the Assets Freeze List. On the list was Centrafrican Airlines.
There are many theories about how the aircraft ended up in Umm Al Quwain in 1999. According to the book Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Planes, and the Man Who Makes War Possible, the book by Doug Farah on Bout’s life,
“In one celebrated case, his operation boldly spirited away a decrepit Ilyushin plane that had been consigned for use as a Soviet war monument. Former Russian aviation official Valery Spurnov recounted a tale of Bout offering one of his pilots $20,000 to fly a shuddering wreck out to a desert landing in the Emirates, where it was promptly turned into a highway-side billboard.”
An unlikely theory is that the landing was an accident and the pilots mistook the small airfield for another. A second is that it was bought with the idea of converting it into a restaurant and a third is that the plane was headed for another airport in the Northern Emirates, was refused permission to approach and then was forced to make an emergency landing because it was running out of fuel.
Another is that it was purchased for scrap metal by someone. This might be the most likely, says Alan Peaford, the editor of Arabian Aerospace.
"I believe it flew from another UAE airport and was then stripped of anything valuable," he says. "Then it was used as a gate guard - common at many airfields, where shell of a plane is used as advertising effectively."
In 2012 Viktor Bout was sentenced to 25 years in prison for his crimes. Till date, the aircraft remains as a giant signboard for the Palma Beach Hotel in front of which it is parked. No one in the hotel knew anything about the aircraft or about how it landed.
The forgotten Ilyushin Il-76 sits just barely a few feet from the E-11 road, slowly rotting in the sun and sand carrying winds eroding the aluminium. A fading reminder of the arms dealer once known as the 'merchant of death'.
References: http://www.esquireme.com/whats-abandoned-aircraft-umm-al-quwain/; http://www.thenational.ae/arts-lifestyle/the-review/shrouded-in-mystery-the-russian-cargo-plane-abandoned-in-umm-al-quwain; http://ae.geoview.info/abandoned_plane_1,15047355p; http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Il-76_at_Umm_al-Quwain_Airport_20140620.jpg
