Another Venezuelan plane that until two weeks ago belonged to the Iranian Mahan Air was on its way to Argentina on Wednesday (early morning in Israel) but at the last minute the authorities ordered it to stay on the ground in Bolivia.
About 200 passengers are currently stranded at La Paz International Airport.
In addition there are 250 passengers who were waiting for a flight back from Buenos Aires and now remain hostages of an international conflict between Argentina, Venezuela and Tehran.
While Argentina's legal authorities have decided to ground the Boeing 747 flown by a Venezuelan-Iranian crew, including a man allegedly belonging to the Revolutionary Guards, another aircraft from Venezuela's national airline Conviasa was forced to remain in place amid fears it would also be confiscated as part of the State Department's sanctions policy. American against the airlines of Venezuela and Iran.
This is flight VO9502 of an A340-600 Airbus aircraft, with a YV3535 license plate that was intended to take off from La Paz on Wednesday evening.
Between 2015 and about two weeks ago, the aircraft was owned by Iranian Mahan Air.
On the 8th of the month, a plane of the Venezuelan airline Emtrasur was grounded by the Argentine authorities with a suspicious air crew that included 19 Venezuelan citizens and five Iranians, including the pilot named Golmarza in Argentina, who is believed to have links with the Revolutionary Guards.
The crew's passports were taken as part of the criminal investigation that was opened and local police raided the hotel where they were staying on Tuesday to confiscate equipment and try to find out what was behind their mysterious flight.
Yesterday the judge also decided to boycott the plane until the end of the proceedings.
In their distress, the captain of the plane claimed that they were transporting "car spare parts" for Volkswagen Argentina, but the company rejected any contact with the flight, with the crew and the goods.
"This is a joint intelligence operation by SEBIN (Venezuela's intelligence service) and Iranian intelligence," opposition Argentine Congressman Gerardo Milman told Israel Today earlier this week.
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