Shady dealings

Does anyone remember Air America?

Air America is a 1990 film starring Mel Gibson and Robert Downey Jr. as Air America pilots, during the Vietnam War, flying missions in Laos. The plot is adapted from Christopher Robbins' 1979 non-fiction book, chronicling the CIA financed "civillian" airline during the Vietnam War to transport weapons and supplies (and heroin) within Laos and other areas of Indochina subsequent to the North Vietnamese invasion of Laos.

Well, it seems we have our very own sub-contracted version in Afghanistan...

Defence secretary Bob Ainsworth, it seems, has been rather less than frank about the availability of helicopter support for "Our Boys" in Afghanistan – but in a rather unusual way. There was one more helicopter available to deliver supplies than he was admitting.

The downside of this intriguing piece of news, however, might just explain his reticence. The additional machine was leased via Nato, operated by a Moldovan charter company, Pecotox Air, which has been banned from EU airspace for safety reasons and which has been implicated in arms trafficking.

These embarrassing details would not have emerged but for the unfortunate incident yesterday when it was reported the helicopter, a giant Mi-26T, registration ER-MCV (pictured above), was shot down by the Taleban a mile from the British military base in Sangin.

Misleadingly, the AP report (link above) cited the Moldovan operator claiming that the aircraft had been "ferrying humanitarian aid" when the crash took place, a detail quickly corrected by Reuters which had Western forces confirming that the helicopter had been "bringing supplies to a British base at Sangin." According to the Los Angeles Times, it was contracted specifically to supply British forces.

Read the whole thing. Dr Richard North is following the story on Defence of the Realm. Apparently the print media have been subject to "D notices" preventing them from releasing the details. Bloggers, on the other hand, have no such restrictions. Stay tuned.