Special Report :
According to reliable sources, the Greek embassy in Belgrade will officially file a complaint with the Serbian government following the weekend crash of a Soviet-era Antonov An-12 cargo plane transporting 11.5 tons of Serbian weaponry to Bangladesh near the city of Kavala.
The envoy will reportedly berate the government for not alerting Greece of the plane’s cargo in advance.
Isidoros Dogiakos, the prosecutor at the Greek Supreme Court, initiated an investigation on Sunday, and the authorities are concentrating their inquiries on the Antonov’s black box in an effort to determine the cause of the disaster, which claimed the lives of eight Ukrainian crew members.
The Ukrainian-registered plane took off on Sunday on its journey to Dhaka in Bangladesh, stopping in Jordan and Saudi Arabia along the way.
According to Serbian Defense Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic, the Antonov cargo jet that crashed late on July 16 in northern Greece was carrying 11.5 tons of Serbian armaments to Bangladesh.
Stefanovic acknowledged that the guns were being provided by a private Serbian arms dealer named Valir, and that the plane’s owner is a Ukrainian business. He added that the weapons transfer had been arranged with the Bangladeshi Defense Ministry “in compliance with international regulations” and that the jet was carrying mines and illumination mortar bombs.
The pilot reported a fire in one of the aircraft’s engines to air traffic controllers after entering Greek territory, according to the Greek Civil Aviation Authority. After being granted his request for an emergency landing in Kavala, the plane was soon lost from air traffic radars.
The Unified Search & Rescue Coordination Centre in Greece was notified by Valir, which was in charge of the cargo, that the Antonov was transporting 82mm M62 mortar flares, 60mm M62 mortar training rounds, and 60mm M67 mortar flares.
Defence Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic swiftly refuted claims that Serbia was shipping the weapons to Ukraine, saying the sole connection to that country was Meridian, the owner of the aircraft carrying the Serbian-made cargo.
The customer was the Bangladeshi Ministry of Defense, a fully authorized end user. According to international regulations, this flight had all the necessary licenses, Stefanovic told the media on Sunday.
Denis Bogdanovich, the general manager of Meridian, the Ukrainian freight airline that owns the aircraft, stated that Bangladesh was the plane’s eventual destination and that all of the crew members were from that country, but he did not offer any specifics regarding the cargo.
It has nothing to do with Russia or Ukraine, Bogdanovich told Reuters.
According to a source at Greece’s Air Accident Investigation and Safety Board, the crashed Antonov was a 50-year-old aircraft. The Soviet-era aircraft’s production halted in 1973, although freight operators in several nations continue to use them.
According to Petar Vojinovic, operator of the specialized aviation website Tango Six in Serbia, the disaster was the third involving an Antonov aircraft in the previous month. Vojinovic further claimed that very old aircraft are being utilized by arms dealers to save costs and boost revenues.
Vojinovic stated in an essay on Tango Six that “it is time for the aviation regulatory authorities of Europe to come to their senses and react to the most obvious risky occurrence that may land in their lap – the usage of old, inexpensive Antonovs that transport explosives and toxic goods.”
