Ouch: Mahan Air Boeing 777 Destroyed In Mashhad Airport Attack

It’s not often you see a Boeing 777 just completely destroyed, but that’s the footage that’s now emerging from a recent attack. Before we get into this, let me just mention that I’m coming at this exclusively from an aviation perspective (give how rare hull losses are), rather than from a political perspective.

Israeli airport attack leads to Boeing 777 hull loss

In late March 2026, Israel conducted a heavy airstrike against Mashhad International Airport (MHD), in northeastern Iran, as part of the current conflict with the country. There had been reports that at least two Mahan Air aircraft had been hit, but at the time, I didn’t actually see full pictures of the damage.

Well, there are now pictures widely circulating online of the Mahan Air Boeing 777, and it’s completely destroyed. Suffice it to say that the plane will never fly again.

That second picture is wild. The plane almost looks like a fish skeleton, in terms of what’s left of it. Interestingly, the engines and most of the wings appear to still largely be intact, while the main part of the fuselage is unrecognizable.

Mahan Air is the largest airline in Iran, with a fleet of around 35 aircraft. The plane that was attacked had the registration code EP-MTC, and it was a 25-year-old Boeing 777-200ER. The plane had only joined Mahan Air’s fleet in December 2025, so it was in service for around three months before it was destroyed.

The plane initially started flying in 2001 for Singapore Airlines. When Singapore Airlines retired the plane in 2015, it started flying for NokSkoot, the low cost carrier from Thailand.

Prior to the hull loss, the 777 had been flying mainly between Tehran (IKA) and China, including Beijing (PEK) and Shanghai (PVG). The plane’s last flight was on March 29, 2026 (the day of the attack), from Shanghai to Mashhad. As you can see below, radar coverage ended over western Afghanistan.

The way Iranian airlines acquire aircraft is fascinating

Iran has long faced sanctions from the West, and that has limited the country’s ability to acquire aircraft directly from Airbus, Boeing, or most leasing companies. As a result, airlines in the country have taken a “creative” approach to acquiring aircraft.

You’ll notice that airlines like Iran Air and Mahan Air have varied and outdated fleets, as they’ll pick up whatever they can get. I’ve written in the past about the wild world of Iranian aircraft smuggling.

Essentially what typically happens is that some unheard of company pops up from a country that doesn’t sanction Iran. Then that company buys a bunch of planes, claims they’re going to fly to some destination, and then mid-flight they turn off their transponders, and the planes mysteriously end up in Iran.

That’s also true of this exact 777 that was just destroyed. For some time, the plane had been in storage in Alice Springs, Australia (ASP). Then in December 2023, the plane was mysteriously acquired by Ion Aviation, a United States-based company that briefly had a simple website where it describes itself as “your trusted partner for aviation solutions and insights,” offering “expert aviation consulting services” (that website has since been taken down).

Then the plane was sold to UDAAN Aviation, a company based in Madagascar (one certainly wonders what the United States-based company knew). In the process, the plane was briefly parked in Lanzhou, China (LHW), then it was flown to Siem Reap, Cambodia (SIA), and then it was flown to Jakarta, Indonesia (CGK), presumably for maintenance.

After some work was performed, the plane was finally flown to Iran. That’s not how the flight plan was actually filed, but instead, transponders were turned off over Afghanistan, and the plane then ended up Iran. Interesting stuff, eh?