A Royal Air Force (RAF) Airbus A400M Atlas tactical transport aircraft deployed to the Malvinas Islands made another technical stop in Chile. The aircraft, registration ZM407, based at the British military installation Mount Pleasant, landed last Friday, the 12th of this month, at Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport in Santiago, Chile, after taking off from Brasilia, Brazil.
According to information published by Escenario Mundial (EM), the A400M flight ZM407 is part of the logistical network linking the Malvinas Islands to the mainland, utilizing both civilian and military infrastructure in the region. These types of operations allow the British military presence in the South Atlantic to be sustained, forces deployed in the archipelago to be supplied, and missions to Antarctica to be supported. In recent years, Chile and Uruguay have become frequent stopover points for British aircraft, demonstrating a consolidation of the United Kingdom’s logistical network in the Southern Cone.
The A400M ZM407 is not an isolated incident. Throughout 2025, a pattern of British flights has emerged with routes between the Malvinas Islands and Brazil and Chile, and between the Malvinas Islands and Uruguay and Chile, involving aircraft such as the A400M Atlas ZM421 and ZM418, as well as the DHC-6 Twin Otter VP-FAZ in Antarctic operations. In several of these missions, the recorded flight times suggest possible transits over Argentine territory without publicly available information regarding any authorizations, an aspect that continues to raise concerns about the transparency and legality of these operations.
This is not the first time this year that an RAF A400M has landed in Chile. On February 13, aircraft ZM421 made a stopover in Punta Arenas after taking off from Mount Pleasant, though the official reasons for its flight were not disclosed. Shortly afterward, in March, another aircraft of the same type participated in Operation Austral Endurance, deploying from Chile to Union Glacier in Antarctica in support of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). That mission, supported by a Voyager KC3 tanker, marked one of the southernmost flights undertaken by the RAF in recent years, confirming the British presence extending from the Malvinas Islands to the Antarctic continent.
The new ZM407 flight also comes at a sensitive diplomatic time. Days earlier, the Argentine Foreign Ministry expressed its “strongest rejection” of the investment announcement by Rockhopper Exploration (United Kingdom) and Navitas Petroleum (Israel) to exploit the Sea Lion field in the waters of the North Malvinas Basin. The Argentine government considers the initiative a violation of UN resolutions on the sovereignty dispute, warning of possible legal action against the companies involved.
So far, there have been no official statements from the Argentine Foreign Ministry regarding the stopover of the A400M ZM407 or any possible overflight requests. However, the pattern of British operations from the Malvinas Islands to South American airports reinforces concerns about the use of regional civilian infrastructure for military purposes in an area of high geopolitical sensitivity and disputed sovereignty.
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