Aviation Official: US Sanctions against Iran Backfire

The sanctions imposed by the US on Iran's aviation industry during the last three decades have backfired as they gifted experience and self-reliance to the country's national airline (Iran Air), a former Iranian aviation official stressed. The United States and Iran broke diplomatic relations in April 1980, after Iranian students seized the United States' espionage center at the US Embassy in Tehran. The two countries have had tense relations ever since. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran has been subject to US sanctions that hinder the purchase of not only military fighter planes, but also civilian passenger aircraft and spare parts. "At present, experts of Iran Air carry out significant activities on plane engines, which are unique and glorious," Former Managing Director of Iran Air (Homa) Saeed Hesami said in his farewell ceremony. He further elaborated on the high expertise and skills of the Iranian engineers, and said, "All thermo-plastic parts needed for the passenger planes are designed and manufactured by Iranian experts." "A while ago, the internal parts of the cockpits of four Iran Air planes were overhauled by the experts of the airline," Hesami added. - Fars