Mysterious airplane parts delivered to Aktau airport in Western Kazakhstan

Disassembled airplanes of unclear origin have been delivered to the Aktau airport in Western Kazakhstan, Tengrinews reports citing Tumba.kz.

The photos sent to the editorial office of the newswire on September 23 capture heavy-duty vehicles with a tailplane, wings and landing gear of an airplane.

The airport administration provided no explanation as to where the airplane parts came from. The airplane parts, according to the administration, were delivered not for the airport. The Aktau airport only serves ready airplanes and does not assemble airplanes, they said.

Moreover, there is no aircraft building company in Mangystau Oblast.

The Civil Aviation Committee declined to comments on the situation. The journalists have not gotten any answers from the Ministry of Defense or Boarder Services either. Tumba.kz then sent a request to the National Security Committee of Kazakhstan.

One of the versions was that those may be NATO airplanes, since NATO has an agreement with Kazakhstan to ship equipment and personnel to and from Afghanistan through Kazakhstan. The military personnel travel by air, while the equipment is transported by land. In addition, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported earlier that the United States, in accordance with the agreement between Kazakhstan and NATO, could transport commercial freights through the Aktau transit point. The agreement does not allow transportation of military freights, however.

Only a day later the Public Revenue Department of Mangistau Oblast in Western Kazakhstan explained the origin and destination of the disassembled airplanes. The department's representative Maksat Akmuratov said that those were parts of two IL-76 airplanes that were shipped from Tashkent Mechanical Plant in Uzbekistan to Taganrog Aviation Scientific-Technical Complex in Russia via Kazakhstan's sea port of Bautino. 

Writing by Gyuzel Kamalova, editing by Tatyana Kuzmina