Strange Comings And Goings

Bird-watching might be fun but plane-watching is an equally satisfying activity. Thanks to certain websites that allow it, enthusiasts and professionals alike can now monitor flight paths of commercial and not-so-commercial flights.
On the night of 11 December 2014, two strange flights were observed on Flight Radar 24. It is futile to ask the authorities to explain the presence of these airplanes.

Shaheen Air

The first airplane was Shaheen Air International from Lahore to Karachi. It went on flying without a transponder Squawk code and relayed no altitude information. Is this even possible to do in Controlled Airspace? The Boeing 737-4QB, registration AP-BJR, flew at FL320 and supposedly had a flight number NL-143. For more 'Shaheen' fun, read Shaheen On The Rocks

The Cargo Airlines or KAM?

The second airplane was The Cargo Airlines B747-281F(SCD) aircraft. Its call-sign was IA 9002 and registration mark 4L-MRK. This flight took off from Arbil (the oldest inhabited city of Iraq since 9,000 BC) airport which is a deeply disturbed area of Iraqi Kurdistan. You will read below why Arbil is infested with thousands of Americans and their opportunistic destroy-then-rebuild businesses.

This particular aircraft flew over Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Caspian Sea, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan. That seems normal but what seems abnormal is that it avoided overflying Iranian airspace to land at Lahore.

When a Jumbo flies at 41,000 feet it is doing so with only fuel and an odd few crew members. Why was it flying without cargo from Arbil? Why did this 'private' aircraft take the long route?
Since the Jumbo flew back to Arbil from Lahore (Pakistan) at 34,000 feet, it must have been carrying something. But what exactly: diplomatic mail, dried fruits, Phujja's siri-paya or Sardar's deep-fried fish? Were they carrying 'special' men, 'intel' minds, bags of undisclosed variety of white powdery 'stuff' that the American 'agency' excels in handling, or death-dealing implements of aggression? Who knows, the uplift might have been 'humanitarian aid' such as diapers destined for crying orphans in Iraqi Kurdistan.

In any case, night operations facilitate cargo loading of suspicious stuff because during daytime airlines' personnel tend to notice fishy business. What parking stands (hard stands) do such flights get, surely not the ones with aero-bridges connected?

Who knows, it might have been our exports to EU jumping 19pc in nine months or good old humanitarian aid according to some UN plan to create more refugees (IDPs: internally displaced persons).

Flights IA 9001 and IA 9002 appear to be regular flights in and out of Iraq. Of course, Pakistan has, over the Afghan War years, become the choice landing spot of 'intel' tourists from brotherly, sisterly, fatherly, motherly and God-cursed otherly countries. What is going on in this 'land of the pure'?

Corruption, opium, and Kam Air
If you research the tail number of this Jumbo, 4L-MRK, the following interesting message appears:

We do not have information on this operator. Either it is a private operator or the operator then has recently changed its name. You can use our search engine if needed.

Kam Air, an airline owned by a politically-connected Afghan businessman, was blacklisted by the US military in Afghanistan for opium smuggling. Then the Afghan government complained. Read the full article HERE.
If you search some more, KAM Air appears to be the owner of 4L-MRK, and this is based in Afghanistan, the land of the Taliban. This airplane was delivered to KAM Air in August 2012 to be operated by The Cargo Airlines based in Georgia (USA) which started operations in August 2012. Oddly, this company has only one aircraft (4L-MRK) in its fleet. 4L-MRK's previous registration was VP-BIJ which was operated by the largest cargo airlines of Russia: ABC (Air Bridge Cargo Airlines).

What kind of an airlines will own just one jet airliner? What is KAM/The Cargo Airlines if not some covert 'agency' or 'black-ops' military contractor?

Why Arbil?

Read about Oil and Erbil to see how it all makes perfect sense.

Spy 'carriers' and spooks

Read about CAT (Civil Air Transport) to find out how the black-ops aviation industry works.

And finally, entertain yourselves with Dealing in death - The CIA and the drugs trade (how the agency created America's heroin and cocaine epidemics).

©Tahir Gul Hasan, 2015