IRGC Cargo Plane Arrives in Minsk with Unknown Cargo

An Iranian Boeing 747-281F EP-FAB cargo plane operated by Fars Air Qeshm arrived in Minsk on August 26 and subsequently flew over Belarusian territory for two days.

This information was reported by the flight tracking service AirNav Radar, as analyzed by Militarnyi.

This flight was designated as flight QFZ9962.

On August 27, EP-FAB departed from Minsk and completed a nearly five-hour flight over Russian territory before returning to the Belarusian capital.

The service marked a specific section of the route with a dotted line — its trajectory was approximate, as AirNav Radar did not have data on the aircraft’s exact location during that segment.

On August 28, EP-FAB took off from Minsk again and set course for Iran. On that day, the aircraft flew the Minsk–Tehran route, departing at 09:44 Kyiv time and landing in Tehran at 14:43.

Thus, starting on August 26, the Iranian Boeing 747 flew from Tehran to Minsk, then made several more flights over Russian territory, and returned to Iran on August 28.

Sanctioned airplane

EP-FAB has serial number 25171 and is one of two Boeing 747s operated by Fars Air Qeshm that the U.S. Department of the Treasury added to its sanctions list on January 24, 2019. At that time, Fars Air Qeshm itself was also added to the list. The U.S. agency stated that the airline used its aircraft to transport cargo on behalf of the IRGC, specifically to Syria.

EP-FAB had previously been mentioned on multiple occasions in reports about flights between Iran and countries in the Middle East. In particular, the aircraft operated flights to Damascus and Beirut, which Western and Israeli sources linked to the delivery of military cargo and components to Iranian allies.

The aircraft was also used on routes to Sudan. In 2024, Reuters reported on the use of Iranian cargo planes to deliver drones and other equipment to Sudan.

Publicly available flight data allows us to determine only the aircraft’s movements, but not its cargo. The nature of the cargo on these flights remains unknown.

As a reminder, Ukraine designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization this year.