This Thursday, during a press conference, the Chilean Minister of the Interior, Carolina Tohá, indicated that the Venezuelan government denied entry and subsequent landing of a flight carrying deported Venezuelans that departed from Santiago.
The plane, a Boeing 737 leased from Estelar, was scheduled to take off from Arturo Merino Benitez airport heading to Maiquetía airport in Caracas, on the morning of Friday, November 24th.
However, the minister added, “…The State of Chile has made tremendous efforts to allow the deportation process to go forward… and unfortunately, this flight that was arriving today and departing tomorrow to Venezuela, was not authorized…”, as reported by the Chilean portal Emol.com, adding that “Chile will continue to make efforts at the highest diplomatic level to solve the problem as soon as possible. It is something we cannot give up on and we will persist”, recalling that “…there is an agreement that we have and it is important that it is fulfilled: if there is a difficulty, it should be resolved…there are two laws approved, there are resource supplements, there are agreements that have been reached with Venezuela to facilitate the deportation processes…”.
Why an Estelar flight and not a FACh flight
The issue goes beyond a simple deportation flight. Previously, the Chilean Air Force (FACh) conducted these flights to manage deportations on board the Boeing 767-300ER that it maintains as a multirole (troop transport, presidential, etc.).
However, Venezuela’s INAC denied more flights and the Chilean Government, being unable to perform them, resorted to the simplest solution… using a Venezuelan airline that had access to the airspace and the possibility of landing at an airport in that country although with a point to consider. Each deported person must be escorted by an officer of the Chilean Investigative Police (PDI), from their departure to their destination, which means that each flight made by Estelar’s fleet (the 737s), will be half deported passengers and half immigration agents.
Not carrying out the deportation within 5 days, which is the time that Chilean law allows to keep detained, allows the deported person to leave without custody or conviction, free and without the right to deportation.
