Bermuda suspended all Russian jets on the island — but flight trackers show some delisted planes are still flying anyway

• Bermuda suspended the airworthiness certifications of 740 Russian jets on the island.
• It's part of the UK's effort to enforce British sanctions in the country's overseas territories.

Bermuda temporarily suspended all Russian jets on the island from its airworthiness system on Saturday. While this legally prohibits the aircrafts from flying, dozens of delisted planes were still active the next day, according to the flight-tracking site FlightRadar24.

There are 740 Russian-operated planes registered in Bermuda, Bernews first reported. Around 50 were spotted flying over Russia and Kazakhstan as of 11:50 a.m. Sunday, per a Flightradar24 screenshot shared on Twitter.

The Bermuda Civil Aviation Authority announced Saturday that international sanctions on the aviation sector made it impossible to "confidently approve" Russian aircrafts as airworthy.

"Therefore, as of 23:59 UTC on March 12th 2022, the BCAA has provisionally suspended all Certificates of Airworthiness of those aircraft operating under the Article 83bis Agreement between Bermuda and the Russian Federation," the BCAA said in a statement.

"These aircraft remain on the Bermuda Register. BCAA is and will continue to deregister aircraft on request from the registered owner, in accordance with relevant BCAA legislation and procedures," an agency spokesperson told Insider.

The mass delisting is part of the UK's effort to enforce in overseas territories, such as Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands, the British sanctions placed against Russia following the country's invasion of Ukraine.

UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss previously told Parliament that the government is "working closely with the overseas territories to make sure that Putin's oligarchs have nowhere to hide."

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, repossessing planes leased to Russian airlines has proven a legal nightmare, aviation advisors told Reuters. The EU forced aircraft leasing companies to cancel their contracts with Russian airlines by March 28, which operate over 700 rented planes, most of which are registered in Bermuda, aviation consultancy IBA said, per US News.

However, because of the sanctions, lessors have to get those planes back, but Russian officials and carriers are not making the task easy.

Russia's aviation regulator, Rosaviatsiya, banned international flying because there is a "high risk of Russian airlines' planes being held or seized abroad." As of Wednesday, only about 24 of the over 500 planes have been repossessed, according to Valkyrie BTO Aviation general counsel Dean Gerber, Bloomberg reported.

This includes a Nordwind Airlines Boeing 777 plane that was detained in Mexico after flying a cargo-only flight to the country, according to airline intelligence provider ch-aviation.

Aviation consulting company Ishka estimates about $10 billion worth of planes is stranded in Russia.

"The lessors may end up having to take a writeoff," Nick Cunningham, an analyst with Agency Partners, told Bloomberg.

The move comes on the heels of sanctions preventing Boeing and Airbus from sending spare parts to Russian airlines. Analysts say this may prompt companies to turn to seedy methods of getting inventory for aircraft repairs, like "cannibalizing" parts from jets on the ground, including those that belong to lessors, or buying uncertified parts from China.