On Sunday, an unprecedented situation took place, when – according to international press agencies – an Irish airline Ryanair flight FR4978 flying from Athens in Greece to Vilnius in Lithuania was “forced” to land in Belarus. The plane was in the airspace of Belarus only about 10 km (6 miles) from the border with Lithuania when it changed route and turned towards Minsk, the capital of Belarus.
Ryanair airline said that Belarusian air traffic controllers had informed the pilots about the bomb threat and ordered them to land in Minsk. The Belarusian military launched its MIG-29 jet to escort the plane to comply with the flight control order issued to the crew.
After the plane landed, Belarusian security agents arrested Roman Pratasevich – or Protasevich – (in the pic), who was running a popular messaging application that helped organize mass demonstrations against Belarus’s authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko. They also removed from the plane Pratasevich’s Russian girlfriend, Sofia Sapega, who is studying at the University of Vilnius.
Then agents with dogs checked the plane, passengers’ luggage and a few hours later finally allowed the flight to continue to Vilnius.
According to Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary conversation with Politico, the incident was “a state sponsored kidnapping accident – state sponsored piracy”.
TV station TVN informed that The European Union immediately agreed on a number of sanctions against Belarus, including a ban on use of the airspace and airports of the 27 EU Member States. EU leaders called the brazen “hijack” of the Irish carrier Ryanair and demanded the immediate release of Roman Pratasevich, a key enemy of Belarus’s authoritarian president Alexander Lukashenko.
According to newsweek.com the White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement that the Joe Biden administration condemned what it called a “shocking act” of diversion a flight to detain a journalist. “It constitutes a brazen affront to international peace and security by the regime. We demand an immediate international, transparent and credible investigation of this incident,” she said, adding that the United States was in contact with NATO, the EU and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe among others about next steps.
As a follow-up to the situation, some international airlines began to avoid Belarus after the incident, as CNN informed. Scandinavian airlines Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) today announced that they are rerouting Oslo to Kiev, the capitals of Norway and Ukraine, according to instructions from the Swedish Transport Agency. The Latvian airline AirBaltic has decided not to enter Belarusian airspace. Cyprus-registered Avia Solutions Group, which has an aircraft’s base in the Baltic region, also announced that it would not use Belarusian airspace.
UK Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said on Twitter account that he had instructed the UK Civil Aviation Authority to require airlines to “avoid Belarusian airspace in order to ensure passenger safety”. He said he also suspended the operating license of the Belarusian flag carrier Belavia.
Over time, as more information becomes available, it is likely that more airlines will choose to reroute and bypass Belarus.
