The Russian plane in Umm Al Quwain and the curious fusion of fashion and fuselage

How an extraordinary day shared with the rusty Ilyushin IL-76 became a treasured memory

The Ilyushin 76 has been abandoned at the now disused Umm Al Quwain airfield for more than 20 years. John Dennehy / The National

The cockpit of the cargo plane. The aircraft first flew for the Soviet air force. Jeff Topping / The National

The plane is particularly good at landing on unpaved runways. Jeff Topping / The National

The plane landed at UAQ in 1999 or early 2000. Jeff Topping / The National

The Ilyushin was designed as a strategic airlifter. Jeff Topping / The National

Rumours circulated it would be turned into a restaurant but this never happened. John Dennehy / The National

Emirati filmmaker Aiham Al Subaihi looking out of the abandoned plane in Umm Al Quwain. Photo: Omar Tartoub

Somali rapper Freek, who lives in Abu Dhabi, shot a music video for his song 'Wala Kilmay' at the plane. Photo: Elia Mssawir

Time's up, it seems, for the mysterious Russian cargo plane at the abandoned Umm Al Quwain airfield. After rusting on the tarmac for decades, now it's being dismantled, marking, for me at least, the end of an era.

It may sound bizarre to claim affinity with an inanimate object, but that plane and I go way back.

In 2008, I had recently arrived in the UAE and, eager to explore, every weekend I would throw the dog and a picnic into my Toyota Yaris and head out into the Great Unknown. With no Google Maps or Waze to guide me, I drove blind, stumbling across some amazing places in the process.

Case in point, this Russian aircraft. Hanging a right at a roundabout in Umm Al Quwain, imagine my surprise when a Soviet-era troop carrier hove into view.

The Ilyushin IL-76 aircraft, which was built for the Soviet air force in the 1970s, has become something of a UAE landmark and is now familiar to anyone driving past the Barracuda Beach Resort along the E11. It is thought that the plane landed here in early 2000, when the runway was converted to tarmac.

In the late 2000s, I had a job at the newly launched magazine Harper’s Bazaar Arabia. So, when we were given the go-ahead to create our own fashion shoots, my thoughts turned immediately to the rusting plane. By chance, I knew people who trained at the now-defunct Umm Al Quwain Sky Diving school — on whose property the plane was parked — so was put in touch with the man in charge. After a little begging and pleading, we were granted access.

With a plane as the backdrop, it was only natural to theme the fashion shoot around it. I named it Drop Zone, called in press sample jumpsuits from Europe, and decided we absolutely had to have a golden parachute. A tailor in Satwa was handed two bolts of gold cloth and a sketch of what I wanted. When I went to collect it a week later, he looked at me with real concern. "What is this?" he asked. "A parachute," I replied. He made me vow to never jump out of an actual plane with it.

The Drop Zone fashion shoot, by Sarah Maisey and Simon Upton, that took place on the Russian plane in Umm Al Quwain. Photo: Simon Upton for Harper's Bazaar Arabia

Driving a borrowed van, with suitcases full of clothes and the parachute stuffed inside a bin bag, the magazine contingent — consisting of Australian photographer Simon Upton and his team, including Madonna’s one-time hairdresser — and I all headed to the tiny airstrip.

For that one amazing day, we clambered in, around and even on top of this mighty machine, in search of the perfect shot.

Because it was a windy day, we quickly realised our model was no match for a parachute canopy filled with air. After being wrenched off her feet, we had to swap in the photographer's assistant instead, with the rest of us hanging on to the harness to anchor him down.

We repeated the shot with the model, minus the parachute, and stripped the two images together in Photoshop.

The model climbed onto the plane in heels for the shoot. Photo: Simon Upton for Harper's Bazaar Arabia

One image that was genuine is of our intrepid model standing — in heels — on top of the fuselage.

Three of us climbed on top of the plane to capture it. The model wobbled in her heels to one end of the plane, while the photographer stood at the other. I sat nervously in between, trying not to think about the lawsuits should one of them fall off. Sitting on the apex of the curved metal, it turns out airplanes are a lot bigger than I had imagined.

The shoot took eight hours. Photo: Simon Upton for Harper's Bazaar Arabia

After eight hours of being sand blasted and sun burnt, we had our shoot, and made history as the first — and to my knowledge last, although I can't confirm that — fashion crew given access to the plane.

Not long after, the airfield closed down and the plane was corralled behind a chained fence. A security guard sat on site for a while, shooing people away, but after a few years, he left too, and the plane was left to rot. Pigeons took up residence in the engines until those were closed off, and even the ladder was removed to stop people getting inside.

Despite that, in 2019, Emirati filmmaker Aiham Al Subaihi managed to direct a music video by Abu Dhabi rapper Freek at the plane, which has since been viewed almost two million times.

Over the years, driving past has triggered all sorts of happy memories, and I feel the plane and I have a kinship, a shared history.

They say everything has its moment, and the plane's moment has certainly passed. Authorities have not revealed why the plane is being taken down, but it is believed to be in the way of a new development. Yet, the news that it's being dismantled fills me with something akin to regret, like losing a once-treasured friend.

After hours spent climbing around its belly and across its roof, in a surreal Yossarian-esque (the character from Joseph Heller's 1961 novel Catch-22) experience, covered in its dust and oil, there is a bond that time cannot break. That plane and I are practically family now, and I shall miss it when it goes.