Soviet-era planes with rich histories that have turned to rust
They once ruled the skies. From Afghanistan to the Iraq wars, these Soviet-era workhorses ferried cargo and passengers across the world.
But a fleet of them is rusting away in a quiet corner of Fujairah airport.
About 30 planes are abandoned at Fujairah – aircraft such as turbo-propeller Antonov An-12s, 26s and 32s along with a few Ilyushin Il-76 jets. Some date from the 1970s; others landed there in the late 1980s and never flew again.
Time and weather have not been kind to these once-proud aircraft, and they will never soar into the skies again.
In 2012, Fujairah airport authorities sought to address the issue and since then, one company has been trying to decommission some of the aircraft.
Howard Tonks is chief commercial officer of Falcon Aircraft Recycling. He worked for the United Nations in Africa for many years, in logistics and aircraft operations.
On a visit to Fujairah in 2009 he spotted the aircraft and in 2012 his company was granted a trade licence to recycle the planes. Falcon is the only company licensed for this type of work in the UAE.
“There is masses of history behind these aircraft,” said Mr Tonks, who was born in the UK. “Especially what they did during the Iraqi and Afghan conflicts.”
There are more abandoned aircraft at Ras Al Khaimah airport, while an article in The National from 2014 looked at the hidden history of a Soviet-era Ilyushin Il-76 languishing beside the Barracuda Beach Resort in Umm Al Quwain.
“People walked away because they’d made lots and lots of money out of ferrying supplies for the [likes of the] United States and Nato. The aircraft had made its money many times over.”
Before a plane is decommissioned, an effort is made to untangle who actually owns it. But the process takes the searcher into a labyrinthine world of court hearings, aircraft registrations, holding companies, shell companies and trust funds. Some of the planes have a murky past. Usually the search goes nowhere because whoever owns the plane owes the airport millions of dirhams in parking fees.
Ten planes have been decommissioned at Fujairah since Falcon started operating in 2012. It also operates at Ras Al Khaimah. “It’s a very slow process,” Mr Tonks said.
Falcon recently decommissioned an Antonov 12 and Ilyushin 76 in tandem, which took about eight weeks: the parts are removed with spanners, the metal cut up and then sent for recycling. They cannot be used in another plane. The engine cores from one Antonov were repurposed for power generation in the oilfields of Kyrgyzstan.
“Without that there is no income from taking planes to pieces,” Mr Tonks said. A separate aircraft shell was trucked to Doha in 2016 where it is now sitting in a shopping centre.
But forget trying to fly them out. “It would take a miracle to get these airborne,” Mr Tonks said.
Mr Tonks plans to wrap up his involvement with the recycling effort this year. “With the progress we’ve made, it will be another 10 years before all the planes disappear.”