Website shows photos of Mirage aircrafts unworn

The web portal 4pelagatos.com yestarday published photographs showing the planes that donated, in 2009, the then president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, to Ecuador. The photos show loose parts covered with plastic, deflated lading tires and even wasps begin to form their combs in them.

These aircrafts were manufactured in late 1960, and when Venezuela deregistered them, they were offered to Ecuador, President Rafael Correa accepted them in September 2009 saying that it was a lie that they were junk, that they would be part of a strategy to refurbish their military equipment: “it seems they are in very good condition and we will accept them,” said to a channel in Ibarra on September 29 of that year.

The first three Mirage arrived at the Taura Air Base on October 29 of 2009. Two months later, the other three came to Manta.

The website 4pelagatos attributed to military sources that those planes “never flew after they were delivered. Now they are in Taura Air Base and serve basically as a platform for building wasp nests ” says the publication.

On March 27 of 2010 the regime announced that the aircraft could operate, after receiving authorization. On that date statements of the then Chancellor Ricardo Patino were collected, statements where he remembered: “We could not use them, yet, because they needed authorization from the Government of France, which was the one that sold these Mirage to Venezuela”.