Uruguay says RAF Falklands flight was medevac; Tierra del Fuego alleges airspace breach
Sources close to the Islands’ administration who spoke with MercoPress had already indicated that many of these flights are medical evacuations of Islanders
Uruguay’s Ministry of Defense confirmed on Wednesday that the flight of a Royal Air Force (RAF) Airbus A400M Atlas between the Falkland Islands and Montevideo was a medical evacuation of two patients, authorized under decree 419/021, which permits the landing of foreign state aircraft for humanitarian reasons or force majeure. Uruguayan Air Force press spokesperson Marisol Diana provided the explanation to Informativo Uruguay.
The official confirmation came after a formal request for explanations from the government of Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego province, which sent notes to Uruguay’s embassy in Buenos Aires and to Argentina’s National Civil Aviation Administration (ANAC). Andrés Dachary, the province’s Secretary for Malvinas, Antarctica, South Atlantic Islands and International Affairs, alleged that the aircraft had turned off its transponder while flying without authorization over Argentine airspace and demanded records, radar traces and air traffic reports to clarify what occurred. Operational safety, territorial integrity and full respect for our sovereignty do not admit silence or passivity, he added.
Argentina’s national government issued no statements on the episode.
Sources close to the Islands’ administration who spoke with MercoPress had already indicated that many of these flights are medical evacuations of 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 A400M, registration ZM413, arrived in Montevideo on Friday, April 10, carrying the two patients and departed on Sunday, April 12, as flight RRR4001. According to the specialized outlet Escenario Mundial, the aircraft switched off its transponder shortly after taking off from Carrasco, rendering it invisible to civilian tracking systems. British journalist Matt Kennard published the tracking data on the social media platform X, and former Argentine ambassador to the United Kingdom Alicia Castro amplified the complaint. 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, wrote Castro, who served as ambassador in London from 2012 to 2015 under the government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and is an opposition figure to President Javier Milei’s current government.
The episode is part of a pattern documented for years. MercoPress reported in September 2025 that Argentine media denounced A400M flights between Santiago de Chile, Montevideo and Mount Pleasant. In 2020, Argentina’s designated ambassador to Uruguay, Alberto Iribarne, revealed 13 military flights from Uruguay to the islands in a single year. In April 2021, Argentina filed a formal complaint over an A330 MRTT that refueled in Montevideo, arguing it violated Mercosur and Parlasur agreements limiting support for British military aircraft to humanitarian emergencies — precisely the category under which Uruguay authorized the current flight.
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.
