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A budget airline flight between two European Union capitals is suddenly diverted when just 60 miles south of its destination, and instead lands 100 miles away in a third country: today’s diversion to Minsk of Ryanair flight 4978 from Athens to Vilnius looks deeply troubling.
The aircraft took off from the Greek capital at 10.29am, Greek time, for the 1,156-mile journey north to the capital of Lithuania. It was the routine Sunday morning flight between the two cities on Europe’s biggest budget airline – on a northbound route that takes it over Bulgaria, Romania and western Ukraine.
At 12.45pm, while in Belarus airspace, passengers would be expecting to begin the descent for an on-time arrival at Vilnius. Instead the plane slowed and turned east, landing half-an-hour later in Minsk.
While the Belarus capital might have been filed as an “alternate” destination in case of problems in Vilnius, the Lithuanian airport was operating normally, with a Ryanair flight from Barcelona and an SAS flight from Copenhagen arriving on either side of the appointed time for FR4978 to touch down.
At the time of writing rumours are circulating on social media that the diversion was made in response to a bomb threat. Had an emergency landing been deemed necessary the obvious course of action would be to continue the short distance to Vilnius.
Speculation abounds that agents from the security forces of President Alexander Lukashenko staged a hijacking as part of a plan by the Belarus regime to apprehend a dissident politician, Roman Protasevich. He was on board the Ryanair jet.
The plane was ordered to divert to Minsk by air-traffic controllers, with a Mig fighter was in attendance to ensure compliance.
This has not been substantiated. Were it to turn out that a European country has effectively perpetrated an act of state-sponsored terrorism to divert an EU passenger aircraft, the consequences could be very serious for Belarus.
Ryanair is the safest airline in the world in terms of the number of passengers flown without a fatality. The incident appears to have been handled professionally by the crew. But anything that interferes with the normal operation of civilian flights is regarded gravely by aviation authorities.
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (Easa) would presumably close Belarus airspace to EU-registered aircraft, with the UK and others following suit.
The state airline, Belavia, might be banned from EU airspace and airports.
At a time when aviation is in serious need of stability, this event – and its possible repercussions – will do little to enhance confidence.
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