Logistics corridor to Falklands via Uruguay: former Kirchnerist diplomat denounces untracked flight
According to a source close to the Islands’ administration who spoke with MercoPress, many of these flights are medical evacuations of Falkland Islanders
A Royal Air Force (RAF) Airbus A400M Atlas transport aircraft operated on April 12 between Mount Pleasant base in the Falkland Islands and Carrasco airport in Montevideo, switching off its transponder during the return leg to the islands, rendering it invisible to civilian tracking systems, according to the specialized outlet Escenario Mundial, which identified the aircraft as registration ZM413 operating flights RRR4000 (outbound) and RRR4001 (return).
Former Argentine ambassador to the United Kingdom Alicia Castro denounced the incident on the social media platform X. A British A400M military aircraft takes off from Montevideo, flies to the Malvinas Islands, turns off its transponder mid-flight and even enters Argentine airspace, she wrote. Castro served as ambassador in London from 2012 to 2015 under the government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, a period during which she engaged in public confrontations with British officials over the sovereignty dispute. Before her diplomatic career she led the flight attendants’ union and served as a member of Congress. She is an opposition figure to President Javier Milei’s current government.
Un avión militar británico A400M despega desde Montevideo, vuela hacia las Islas Malvinas, apaga el transpondedor en pleno trayecto y hasta incursiona en espacio aéreo argentino. Un hecho gravísimo desde toda perspectiva, que debería haber generado una reacción inmediata, firme y… https://t.co/jNQHzDiJI4
— Alicia Castro (@AliciaCastroAR) April 12, 2026
The Argentine government issued no statements and filed no diplomatic complaints following the flight.
However, according to a source close to the Islands’ administration who spoke with MercoPress, many of these flights are medical evacuations of Falkland Islanders. When weather conditions prevent the evacuation from being carried out to Chile — the usual route — flights are diverted to Montevideo, where patients are treated at the British Hospital in that city.
The incident is not isolated. The use of Montevideo as a stopover for the British presence in the Falklands has been documented for years. MercoPress reported in September 2025 that Argentine media outlets had denounced A400M flights between Santiago de Chile, Montevideo and Mount Pleasant, describing both South American capitals as key logistical hubs in the British deployment network. In 2020, Argentina’s then-designated ambassador to Uruguay, Alberto Iribarne, told the Argentine Senate that 13 military flights from Uruguay to the islands had been recorded the previous year. In April 2021, Argentina filed a formal complaint with Uruguay over an Airbus A330 MRTT that refueled in Montevideo on its return route from the islands, arguing the assistance violated tacit and written Mercosur and Parlasur agreements limiting support for British military aircraft to humanitarian emergencies.
Uruguay has justified the stopovers as technical assistance, consistent with its official position of neutrality in the sovereignty dispute. Links between Uruguay and the Falklands predate the 1982 conflict: the Montevideo-Stanley sea route was for decades the islands’ main connection to the continent, and commercial and family ties persist.
The A400M Atlas is one of the aircraft permanently deployed at Mount Pleasant as part of RAF 1312 Flight, alongside a Voyager tanker. The base, opened in 1985 after the 1982 war, also houses Typhoon fighters from 1435 Flight and a rotating infantry company. Its airfield also handles civilian flights, including a weekly connection to Chile.
The switching off of the transponder in an area Argentina claims as its airspace adds a dimension to the episode beyond routine logistics, though it has not been independently confirmed whether the flight actually entered Argentine airspace.
