B-4026 is a Boeing 737-76D #7BB0E1, part of Central (PLAAF HQ) Command's 34th Transport Division, 100th Air Regiment out of Beijing.
Back tracing the origin of the flight, FR24 coverage only began as it left Myanmar, but that is not where it came from. Briefly, 2 hours ago, the flight was spotted on ADSBx over Thailand. This is also NOT where it originated from.
So, Wei Fenghe, Defence Minister of China, is in Dhaka today.
Interesting. This explains the gap in coverage of the Dhaka B-737 flight. CCP Defence Minister Wei Fenghe visited, and agreed with, Vietnam on strengthening bi-lateral ties & defense cooperation.
eng.chinamil.com.cn caption: "Chinese State Councilor and Defense Minister General Wei Fenghe pays tribute to Chinese martyrs died in assisting Vietnam in the battles against French and American aggression at a cemetery in Gia Lam District of Hanoi on April 25, 2021."
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One of the cheekiest things I've seen in a while from CCP censors.
Gonna post this, go pour myself a cup of coffee, then will be back in 10 minutes. See if you can spot what I see.
Ok, back.
Lately the Chinese military has been switching some aircraft nose numbers to a two digit format, like this example I noted yesterday. The Y-8Q above has no 2nd digit, which instantly raised suspicion. Could it be a new format of just one digit?
Last night, I spotted two aircraft using military callsigns and ranges of hex codes leaving the Dalian, Shanghai region where known Y-8Q/KQ-200 (GX6) & Y-8JZ (GX8) are based. They overflew the western Pacific east of Taiwan near Okinawa, then returned.
The easiest airframe to be identified is the Y-8Q/KQ-200 (GX6), tail no. 82014.
Given there was a Y-8Q last night on FR24 within the hex code ranges of other known Y-8Q codes, I feel confident #7A431C belongs to 82014. The margin of error exists because #7A431D was also out.
The other aircraft is a Y-8JZ (GX8), nose no. 24. There are 8 known Y-8JZs, of which the serial range for 4 of them are tied to 9xx1 coding from PLANAF 2nd Div/6th Air Regt.
9211, 9221, 9231 & 9241 S/Ns exist. I'm confident this one is 9241.