South Africans have their eyes peeled for Russians in the sky

With the sensational news of a mysterious Russian-owned Ilyushin Il-76 cargo aircraft landing at Upington last week, it’s understandable that South Africans have begun focusing their attention skyward or obsessively watching flight tracking apps.

In the process, they've spotted many other Il-76s flying into and out of Air Force Base Waterkloof in Pretoria over the past few weeks, using call signs like “LMG290”, causing serious concern.

Fortunately, we can report that there is nothing untoward or unusual about these flights: they have been chartered by the South African National Department of Defence (SANDF) to return troops and equipment that were stationed in Kinshasa and Lubumbashi in Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Following the disastrous fall of Goma in the eastern DRC in January and the encirclement of South African, Malawian, and Tanzanian forces in the city, which were part of the SADC peace enforcement mission (Samidrc), Pretoria began planning to support and protect those troops.

This involved flying in a rapid reaction force to Luano International Airport in Lubumbashi, in the southeastern DRC, along with a smaller number going to Kinshasa. The force, deployed under Operation Impilo, included two Oryx helicopters, anti-aircraft systems, ground support systems for other aircraft, and about 700 combat troops and other personnel.

This force remained in place throughout the many months of the Samidrc encirclement, and stayed even after all the South African, Tanzanian, and Malawian troops in Samidrc withdrew from DRC earlier this year.

Later, the two Oryx helicopters of the Impilo force were joined by two more that had been released from the United Nations peace enforcement mission in the DRC, Monusco, of which SA remains part.

Finally, last month, South Africa decided to end the Operation Impilo deployment, which had an unclear legal basis without a specific presidential authorisation letter, and to repatriate all the equipment, helicopters and troops to South Africa.

Given that South Africa has never had aircraft the size of the Il-76 to transport heavy and bulky equipment, the country had to charter the planes from commercial operators, one of which was Fly Sky Airlines, a Kyrgyzstan-based provider of large cargo aircraft.

Fly Sky‘s Il-76, with the serial number EX-76017, has flown at least 17 times between Pretoria and Lubumbashi since mid-September, steadily returning SANDF equipment to South Africa.

Call sign

What’s important to note is that these charters always carry a call sign assigned by the South African Air Force (SAAF), which is usually in the form “LMG29(x)”. For instance, most of EX-76017’s flights have had the call sign LMG290. This call sign is assigned to the SAAF by the International Civil Aviation Organization and originated from the SAAF’s Afrikaans name, Suid Afrikaanse Lugmag. On the radio, it’s stated as “South Africa” or “South African”, followed by the flight number.

So, the next time you see an Il-76 flying into or out of South Africa on a flight tracking site, take a look at the call sign. If it starts with LMG, it’s chartered by the SANDF and is nothing to worry about.

Some Daily Maverick readers are convinced that the Fly Sky Il-76 that is doing most of the flights to and from Lubumbashi is the same Il-76 cargo aircraft that landed at Upington last week.

But they are in fact different aircraft, though of the same type. The one that landed at Upington has the aircraft serial number RA-76445 and belongs to a different charter company, Abakan Air.

Aviation sources say the aircraft landed at Upington, unloaded its cargo and departed, all in darkness, which prompted considerable suspicion and speculation, some of it rather wild, including suggestions that it might have been carrying nuclear material.

It didn’t help that Abakan Air has been sanctioned by the US for transporting weapons for the Russian military to use in Ukraine.

This week, SA’s Department of Transport issued a statement saying it had officially approved the flight of the Abakan Air Il-76 to Upington last week, authorising it to transport “general cargo, civilian helicopters and acrobatic aeroplanes”.

It added that Abakan Air was also required to submit information about the consignor/consignee of the cargo, which it had done. However, a spokesperson for the department declined to provide this information to Daily Maverick.

The department’s statement said, “The South African government has not blacklisted the operator concerned. Furthermore, the department has no knowledge or record of any information from any other government indicating that this operator has been blacklisted.”

Aviation experts point out that the Ilyushin 76 can carry much larger equipment than other cargo aircraft available to the SAAF or other South African clients. This explains why it is so often used for flights of this kind. DM

Darren Olivier is a military expert and a director at African Defence Review.