Tom Blackwell -National Post
An Iranian Mohajer-6 military drone was shot down by Ukrainian forces and shown off in a CNN broadcast last month. A logo of Quebec-based Bombardier Recreational Products was visible in photographs of the wreckage.
A Quebec-based company says it stopped selling aircraft engines to Iran in 2019 and is “deeply concerned” by reports that some of the motors are being used in Iranian military drones, including at least one flown by Russia in Ukraine.
Bombardier Recreational Products (BRP) says it is investigating the reports, confirming that a string of thefts of the engines is one of several possible explanations for how they might have ended up in Iranian unmanned planes.
Its Austrian subsidiary Rotax did also once sell to the Islamic Republic, and a Tehran-based engine maintenance and overhaul company, Mahtabal , still describes itself as Iran’s official representative for Rotax aviation engines.
BRP — better known for its Ski-Doos, Sea-Doos and other recreational vehicles — stressed that the components are designed for light civilian aircraft, not military vehicles.
“We are deeply concerned and are taking this situation very seriously,” said spokeswoman Biliana Necheva. “We have already started an investigation into this matter to attempt to determine the source of the engines.”
It’s the second time in two years the company has been embroiled in controversy over use of the engines in warfare. It halted sales to Turkey after news emerged that that country’s Rotax-powered Bayraktar TB-2 drones were targeting Armenian forces in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Ottawa also prohibited use in the Bayraktar aircraft of target-finding cameras made by another Canadian company. (Ironically, Ukraine is now flying the Turkish drones, with the federal government donating those same Ontario-made devices it had earlier barred Ankara from buying.)
Meanwhile, a water-jet and possible engine from one of BRP’s Sea-Doo jet skis was spotted by a British defence analyst in a photograph of a unique marine drone apparently used by Ukrainian forces. The autonomous boat was recovered recently by Russia after washing ashore in Crimea.
Asked about the latest news regarding the Iranian drones, Global Affairs Canada spokeswoman Lama Khodr said the government has a number of sanctions in place related to Russia and Iran, including bans on the export to the two countries of military equipment or goods that could be used in making weapons.
“Bombardier Recreational Products has opened an investigation into the situation,” she said. “We will follow developments closely.”
Iran admitted last week what had become all but undeniable, that it had supplied Russia with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) now being employed in Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. It said they were sold before the war started.
Most of the attention has centred around the Shahed-136 kamikaze drone, a frightening element of the ongoing Russian bombardment of Ukraine’s electrical and water infrastructure. The attacks have left millions of civilians with limited access to power and clean water.
The Rotax engine was spotted in a different model — the Mohajer-6 — that’s used for both surveillance and firing missiles. It was shot down by Ukrainian forces and first shown off in a CNN broadcast last month. The company logo figures prominently in photographs of what appeared to be a Rotax 912 engine.
The same part — or a facsimile of it — was also discovered in another Mohajer-6, downed by Kurdish forces in Iraq last month.
And a pro-regime news site — Iran Press News Agency — ran a story last year about yet another Iranian military UAV — the Shahed-129 — that it said was powered by the Rotax 914 engine.
Though it’s aircraft engines, known for their light weight and fuel efficiency, are primarily used in civilian craft, they do have a history with above-board defence applications, too. The United States’ Predator, which pioneered modern drone warfare, was driven by a Rotax 914 engine.
Necheva said the company’s internal controls — including a military-sales policy — strictly limit use of its products for defence purposes. BRP prohibits sales destined for military activity in Iran, Turkey or Russia, she said.
And it has not supplied any engines to Iran since 2019 “and none will be sold moving forward,” said Necheva.
Those found in Iranian UAVs could have been counterfeit — there are reports of copies being made in China — removed from civilian planes purchased by Tehran, or stolen, she said.
In fact, BRP-Rotax has documented a surprising string of thefts of over 150 of its engines from as long ago as 1996. Most were pilfered from airfields in the U.K. and Europe but at least one was taken here, at Carp, Ont., in 2009, according to a list on the company website.
An Iranian-American expert on Iran’s military and intelligence sectors, who asked to be identified only as Mehdi for security reasons, said Iran may well have used those methods to source engines. But he argued most of them were likely obtained through front companies.
He pointed to Tehran’s Mahtabal , whose website describes the firm as an “aviation engine repair and overhaul organization” and “the official representative of Rotax air engines in Iran,” according to a Google translation of the Farsi.
The site’s homepage features photographs of a series of Rotax engines, though it does not appear to actually be selling them, and hyperlinks from the images to BRP-Rotax web pages are broken.
BRP was sold by Bombardier Inc., in 2003, eventually becoming a publicly traded company. Bombardier had acquired Rotax in 1970.
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