Mahan Air’s 35-year-old Boeing 747-300 has now started to fly again, after over five years of maintenance and heavy C-check in Tehran.
This Boeing 747-300 is the world’s last passenger Boeing 747-300 aircraft that was parked at Tehran’s Mehrabad International Airport after suffering an engine failure in October 2015, AirLive reported.
The aircraft, registered under EP-MNE, was on a domestic flight from the Mehrabad airport to Bandar Abbas International Airport with 19 crew and 422 passengers when the aircraft suffered engine failure.
Following the damage to two engines shortly after departure, the fuselage was also damaged during the incident. However, the aircraft safely landed at Tehran some 40 minutes after departure.
Two engines were reportedly transformed from another Mahan Air’s retired Boeing 747-300, registered under EP-MND.
Mahan Air has now scheduled the world’s oldest passenger plane, 747-300, for daily domestic flights in Iran.
Battered by Sanctions
After the Islamic Revolution, as a result of economic sanctions against Iran by the United States, Iranian airlines were unable to expand or replace its fleet.
The prolonged period of time of international sanctions and prohibition on purchasing spare parts and new planes led to a dramatic rise in its average fleet age and plunging safety record.
The imposition of international sanctions over Iran's nuclear program exacerbated the situation for the flag carrier Iranian airline.
However, the nuclear deal Iran signed with world powers in 2015, which led to the removal of international nuclear sanctions against Tehran, paved the way for airlines, especially the flag carrier IranAir to renew its aging fleet.
IranAir secured massive orders from giant plane manufacturers after the conclusion of the nuclear deal. Its orders included 100 Airbus, 80 Boeing and 20 ATR passenger planes, with an aggregate value of $20-30 billion.
Later, as the US reimposed unilateral sanctions against the Islamic Republic, the delivery process of the orders placed by IranAir came to a halt after the US Treasury Department revoked the licenses of Boeing and France’s Airbus to sell commercial planes to Iran Air.
Although Airbus is based in France, it must have the approval of the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control to sell planes to Iran because at least 10% of the components of the aircraft are US-made. This is also the case with any other planemaker.
An Airbus A321, two Airbus A330s and 13 ATR 72-600 turboprops, five of which were delivered hours before the reimposition of the first batch of sanctions in August 2018 have been delivered to Iran as part of the contracts.
The rest of the orders were cancelled, as OFAC revoked previously issued licenses allowing the sales of brand-new airplanes to Iran. This is while selling airplanes to Iran was among the issues directly addressed in the nuclear agreement.
IranAir sent a letter to Boeing in late 2020 asking the Chicago-based jet maker to clarify the status of the deal it had signed with the Iranian airline in 2016, Alireza Barkhor, the company’s CEO, said recently.
“We reminded the aircraft maker of its commitments and the human rights issues US always claims to advocate. It is the right of the Iranian people to experience safe aviation operations and have access to adequate and efficient aircraft spare parts according to the contract,” he was quoted as saying by IRNA.
Echoing the same remarks, Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mohammad Eslami said, “Boeing must be held accountable over its contract with IranAir.”
