At the airports of the emirates of Fujairah and Ras Al Khaimah, one can still see Soviet-era planes collapsing from time to time.
About 30 Soviet-era aircraft rust in a quiet corner of the airport of the emirate of Fujairah, UAE. Among them are the An-12, An-26 and An-34, as well as several IL-76.
Airplanes landed at this airport in the late 1980s and never took off again. Time and climatic conditions did not spare the car - they would never take off again.
Other abandoned Soviet aircraft are located at the airport of the emirate of Ras Al Khaimah and next to the beach resort of Barracuda Beach in the emirate of Umm al-Quwain. All of these aircraft, until their last landing, were mainly used in conflict zones.
A few years ago, the authorities of the Fujairah airport thought about decommissioning cars with further processing. Howard Tonks - Chief Commercial Officer of Falcon Aircraft Recycling, the only company licensed for this type of work in the UAE, has worked for the United Nations in Africa in the field of logistics and aircraft operations for many years. During a visit to Fujairah in 2009, he saw one of these aircraft, and in 2012 his company was granted a processing license.
“There is a vast history behind these planes,” said Tonks, who was born in the UK, “especially what they did during the Iraqi and Afghan conflicts.”
In order to decommission the aircraft, attempts are made to find out who actually owns it. Some of the aircraft have a grim past. Usually, searches do not lead to anything, since the person who owns the plane owes the airport millions of dirhams for parking. If all attempts to track the owners are unsuccessful, ownership is granted through the courts.
Ten aircraft were decommissioned in Fujairah since the Falcon went to work, and they were all acquired by the company on their own. The company also operates in Ras Al Khaimah. Among the recently decommissioned machines are the An-12 and Il-76. The process took about eight weeks: individual parts were removed using wrenches, the metal was cut, and then sent for recycling. The internal circuits of the Antonov engine were refitted to generate electricity in the oil fields of Kyrgyzstan. In 2016, the aircraft body was sent to Doha. Now it is used in a shopping center.
