How One Boeing 777 Exemplifies Iran’s Riskiness and Resilience

The Trump administration says all Iranian airlines are being “shut down.” So why is this jumbo jet still flying from Tehran to Southeast Asia?

By Damien Cave

The travelers speaking Persian at Ho Chi Minh City’s international airport last Monday dragged their bags toward an old Boeing 777 flying a new route — to and from Tehran. Many said they recognized it was a risky venture.

The plane, owned by Mahan Air, Iran’s largest private carrier, is one of just a few still defying a widened American effort to isolate Iran with threats to punish any entity that engages with its airlines. And because previous sanctions have barred suppliers from selling parts or services to Mahan for years, the dangers are also mechanical.

Iran’s aging aircraft — like the 23-year-old jetliner on the tarmac in southern Vietnam — are what sanctions experts often describe as “disasters waiting to happen.” Oman, Turkey and Iraq have stopped accepting Mahan’s flights. But not Vietnam, nor a few others. Recent stops for the 777 with tail sign EP-MTE also included Bangkok, Beijing and Moscow.

“Even if you don’t want to think about it, the danger is in your mind,” said Amir, 66, an Iranian in a golf shirt who was leaving Ho Chi Minh City, sharing only his first name to avoid trouble in Tehran. “Hopefully we’ll land safely. Hopefully nothing will happen.”

The story of Mahan Air’s old Boeing wide-body illustrates the risks that come with the Trump administration’s amplified campaign to make civil aviation a tool for coercion. In the aircraft’s travel record and reputation — pieced together with documents, tracking data and interviews with aviation and sanctions experts — there are warning lights aplenty.

Alongside the potential danger for civilians are hints of Iranian resilience and third-party resistance that suggest American threats can only go so far when so many still rely on energy from the Middle East.

Direct flights from Tehran to Vietnam only started in August, with plans to run weekly. Thailand added flights in July. The new routes appeared not long after Iran, in May, allowed several tankers heading for the region to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

For the countries still receiving Iranian flights as of early October (along with China and Russia, the list includes Afghanistan, Armenia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Thailand, Uzbekistan and Vietnam), the promise of future energy supplies appears to be a draw. And not just now. What if Iran keeps control of the Strait of Hormuz with tolls for adversaries, and expedited service for friends?

“That may be the trade off,” said Emanuele Ottolenghi, a senior fellow at the Center for the Research of Terror Financing who has studied Iran’s networks for decades. “Keep our flights open and we’re going to let your tankers travel.”

Some countries may also be trying to do a bit of superpower hedging.

The latest round of U.S. sanctions targeting companies that service, ticket or provide fuel to Iranian airlines threaten to exclude violators from the dollar-based financial system. China, a strong critic of that very system — and what it calls America’s “illegal unilateral sanctions” — has increased flights between Tehran and several cities, including Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing.

For countries determined to avoid the perception of alignment with either superpower, offering limited service to Iran lets them “more or less sit in the middle,” said Farzin Nadimi, a senior fellow with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “The new Mahan flights look like modest commercial and tourism links.”

Indeed, a dozen people in the airport check-in line said they had arrived with a packaged tour that delivered a week’s worth of beaches and sites across Vietnam. A few carried teal cone-shaped hats as souvenirs. Many described the trip as a way to convene with relatives coming from outside Iran and find respite from the grinding strain of life in a low-grade war.

But analysts doubted that tourism was, or will be, the plane’s only mission.

Mahan has been under sanctions from the U.S. Treasury Department since 2011 for alleged “dual use” violations that have included transporting weapons, military personnel, bulk cash and gold for the Iranian regime. Among Western intelligence agencies, it is known primarily as the airline run by and for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

In April, EP-MTE was specifically identified and sanctioned by U.S. officials in a statement accusing Mahan Air of transporting unmanned drones around the world.

A few months later, President Trump updated executive orders aimed at terrorism with broader sanctions targeting Iranian aviation. The Treasury Department justified the measures by pointing to Mahan Air.

“Let this be a warning to anyone doing business with Iran’s remaining airlines, all of which we sanctioned today,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a September statement. “You are at risk of being cut off from the global financial system.”

The state-run company that operates Vietnam’s airports did not respond to requests for comment, nor did Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Despite the American threats, EP-MTE is still flying.

Aviation records show it was one of five Boeing 777-200ERs delivered to Singapore Airlines between 2001 and 2003 that later moved to a Thai discount airline that went bankrupt during the pandemic. That led to nearly three years of storage in the Australian desert. Then, in 2023, a shell company registered in Florida, Ion Aviation, bought the planes and moved them to China, before another company, Udaan Aviation, registered the lot in Madagascar. Tracking data showed that the planes traveled from Cambodia to Iran in July 2025.

“This is a classic scheme that the Iranians have used for decades to acquire used aircraft, using an intermediary in some funny country,” Mr. Ottolenghi said. “They’ve used Armenia, Iraq, Malta and Madagascar.”

Such a large acquisition carried legal risks; 22 people in Madagascar were detained last year and accused of forging documents related to the transfers.

But safety is the lingering concern. Aviation enthusiasts have noted that for all five planes, the extended stay in an Australian boneyard most likely degraded fuel lines, rubber seals and metal engine covers. With the plane subject to an export ban, factory-certified reactivation — the industry standard after years of deep storage — did not occur.

Russian airlines, under sanctions since the country’s attack on Ukraine in 2022, have faced similar challenges. One company, S7, grounded its fleet of Airbus A320/1neo planes in 2024 for lack of maintenance.

“This highlights how sanctions on civil aviation can bite, but only slowly,” said Agathe Demarais, a senior policy fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations. “Such sanctions are essentially a ticking time bomb for a country’s airlines.”

During the brief period when the nuclear deal that President Barack Obama had negotiated with Iran was in place, exemptions for aviation sales were granted, perhaps giving Iran a chance to stockpile vital components. Analysts said Iran could also be cannibalizing other planes for parts. Josefine Petrick, a policy fellow who focuses on the negative impacts of sanctions at the Bourse & Bazaar Foundation, a London think tank, called it “puzzle piecing a plane together.”

It can work, for a time. Flight trackers show that Monday’s flight landed safely in Tehran. But there is no denying the additional danger.

EP-MTE is one of at least two old 777s being used by Mahan to fly across Asia. The other is EP-MTB. Each one can hold more than 200 passengers. And with time, the mechanical risk compounds like interest, prompting complex questions about responsibility.

Who or what country or company would be blamed if one of Mahan’s 777s crashes?

“Sanctioning countries need to be aware and factor in the indirect effects of the policies that they push for,” Ms. Petrick said.

“Airplanes in Iran often operate twice as long as they would in other countries,” she added. “To some extent, these really are disasters waiting to happen.”

Tung Ngo contributed reporting from Hanoi.

Damien Cave leads The Times’s new bureau in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, covering shifts in power across Asia and the wider world.